Just to add to the historical record

[GretschWretch]

While searching AI for Multivox Marvel Bass just to see what it had to say, I blundered into this:



This documents a version of the Marvel which I knew of from eBay auctions dating back about twenty years, but which I both failed to buy or even document the existence of. Things to note:

Double pickup
Four-on-a-side tuners (and the really odd duck Stradolin headstock badge)
Sunburst finish

All of the two-pickup versions I have seen have the sunburst finish. The single pickups for the most part are black.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

Wow... Ive been hunting for a score of "Shoo fly don't follow me" for ages!
Interesting bass too! I thought the Strad-o-lin moniker was a Mosrite/ Gruggett thing.

 

[GretschWretch]

Wow... Ive been hunting for a score of "Shoo fly don't follow me" for ages!
Interesting bass too! I thought the Strad-o-lin moniker was a Mosrite/ Gruggett thing.

Strad-o-lin was one of many badges produced by the peter Sorkin company, probably whose best known-brand was Premier, a relatively late entry to the product line.

Thread 'Wow! Time machine! 1959 Sorkin catalog'

Dec 14, 2023

I was web-surfing, trying once again to find additional information on the Multivox Marvel bass, and once again fell down the rabbit hole of interrelated musical instrument jobbers in the NY/NJ area in the 1940s and '50s. And then what to my wondering eyes should appear but THIS! A Peter Sorkin catalog from 1959.

View attachment upload_2023-12-14_21-42-43.webp

This is the only bass in the catalog, and the print is so tiny about all I can make out is that the price appears to be $119.00 (or thereabouts), and the available finishes were blonde and sunburst.

I think this is a transition phase model, which...

• GretschWretch
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Basses [BG]

• 

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...roll-guitars-an-attempted-chronology.2255040/

 

[Ostie]

Stead-o-Lin marketed mandolins back in the day. They were on a par with Harmony and Kay. I owned one for a while. But I did not know about the basses.