mrbell321 said:
However, given enough time, bad examples or abused instruments will be discarded/destroyed. It's a bit of natural selection that leaves the "best" genes to the next generation for those that we consider "vintage". New basses may be good, or bad, but there's a lot of them still around, some are bound to be removed from the gene pool before too long, and that's more likely if they're bad.
I'm wish I could title this post "On the origin of Basses"
I don't see it that way at all. Why would an instrument just be destroyed? Surely dogs are more likely to be put in a case and forgotten until enough time has passed that they become old and suddenly desireable and, as a result, highly valuable. The ones which get played, the ones you suggest are the good ones, are far more likely to be exposed to the effects and consequences of aging, playing, bar fights, nights in cold vans, sweat, theft, accidents with drunken dancers, parts worn out and replaced, refinished, fallen off stands, fights with band members, flying drumsticks and microphones etc etc etc. They're the ones most likely to have
not survived. If your fifty year old bass still has its fragile nitro skin intact, then it hasn't seen that much real world action, it doesn't lend itself to the theory that it was loved and had the living bejesus played out of it.
There were some truly great instruments made back in the days of yore, quite clearly, and I don't think anyone disputes that. However, they quite clearly weren't all magic. Just like now. There are spectacularly good instruments being made this very day by people with decades of skill and experience drawing upon sixty years of knowledge of what's good about the electric bass guitar. A 1959 dog is worth a hell of a lot more than the best of 2015 though. Pristine models in unplayed condition tend to be worth more than worn and battered, refretted and pots replaced ones from the same year. Logic would suggest that the battered one is the one which had the mojo, got all the sound vibrations through the wood fibres and aged more than the one locked in its case under the bed. How much does wood age in an intact nitro skin locked away in a case anyway?
It's interesting to see Aria SBs getting a mention earlier. I agree, they're a great design generally made to a very, very high standard but, up to just a few years ago, they were largely ignored. They were always great, though, despite the low price tags for twenty years. MIJ Fenders are now getting some recognition too. Funny things happen to the perception of instruments once they pass thirty years of age.
Funny things happened to my knees too, once I passed thirty
i
