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NBD - 1st Bass

#41
JIO said:
Soul brothers perhaps! Unless my Heathkit amp is out of the frame, I may have been plugged into one of the guitarists amps, which were probably Silvertone or a similar brand. I owned the bass for at least a year before my dad & I assembled the Heathkit.

Not mine, but this model -
View attachment 7211046
2X12! I was pretty clueless about tone then, so it being loud was important! :laugh:
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Heathkit had some cool stuff. 😎
 
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#43
Bikeguy57 said:
Heathkit had some cool stuff. 😎
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I found a vintage Heathkit badge on eBay and for fun attached it to my Ashdown 550 Spyder to confuse people! :D

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#44
joeLowB said:
Heathkit had very cool stuff... totally whetted and nurtured my interest in electronics through the late 60s.
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My dad was the original DIY'r - we never had a repairman in our house or garage. Whatever needed fixing, he with my brother & my help- fixed it. So getting me a Heathkit was right up his alley. We built it together - I'm nostalgic whenever I smell solder. :)
 
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#45
JIO said:
Ok.., so not a set neck, just a different style of body to neck bolt on design. Found this hacked model on Reverb for close to what I paid for my 100% stock Tempo. DIY refinish, replaced bridge & knobs, engraved on the aluminum pg/hs plate and (poorly) repaired & replaced hs. The pg engraving is sorta cool, but otherwise no thanks...

View attachment 7212582 View attachment 7212583 View attachment 7212584 View attachment 7212591 View attachment 7212592
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If you pop the neck on yours after it arrives, I would not be at all surprised if what you find is this:

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This sort of "stepped" heel I have seen only on the Teisco copies of the second generation P bass, the National N850, and the Bone Buzzer.
 
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#46
GretschWretch said:
If you pop the neck on yours after it arrives, I would not be at all surprised if what you find is this:

View attachment 7212899

This sort of "stepped" heel I have seen only on the Teisco copies of the second generation P bass, the National N850, and the Bone Buzzer.
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A blurry photo? (kidding ;)) Yes, my '68 Custom Kraft "Bone Buzzer" has a neck/neck pocket interface like that -

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#50
txhawaii said:
My memories of Woolworths are of child portraits and Coke Icees. I don't recall any musical instruments. Was shopping here for instruments common? Did they sell Fender or just imports from Japan?

As I understand it, importers liked the low priced high quality instruments coming from Japan and would push those models into the marketplace.
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Woolworths in UK used to stock electric guitars and basses and some very cheesy cheap amps as I recall. I used to go in as a kid and ogle at them as it was the closest I'd ever been to electric guitars and basses. None of the stock was high end stuff as prices ranged from about £15 to £40 in 1973. However there was a very good chance some of those were made by Matsomoku back then given they were 'budgets'.
If only we had a time machine...:D
 
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#51
TeeSee said:
Woolworths in UK used to stock electric guitars and basses and some very cheesy cheap amps as I recall. I used to go in as a kid and ogle at them as it was the closest I'd ever been to electric guitars and basses. None of the stock was high end stuff as prices ranged from about £15 to £40 in 1973. However there was a very good chance some of those were made by Matsomoku back then given they were 'budgets'.
If only we had a time machine...:D
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Yah, it's not like we took pictures of those guitars at Woolworths like would be common today! At 13 I don't think I had a camera at all!

If I did, it would have been like this one -
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#54
jim nolte said:
Cool, I bought my first bass around the same time a long scale Kingston ordered from Allied Electronics, tuned it like a guitar, what did I know right, tuned the G string to E and it instantly snapped so I had a 3 string bass for the first couple of months, on sale for $69.99, I see that you were a Spock fan :)
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#55
JIO said:
Soul brothers perhaps! Unless my Heathkit amp is out of the frame, I may have been plugged into one of the guitarists amps, which were probably Silvertone or a similar brand. I owned the bass for at least a year before my dad & I assembled the Heathkit.

Not mine, but this model -
View attachment 7211046
2X12! I was pretty clueless about tone then, so it being loud was important! :laugh:
View attachment 7211048
Click to expand...
$335 in 1967 is adjusted to $3,207!! Wow!!
 
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#57
JIO said:
This was in Omaha Nebraska 1966, so I don't know about other Woolworths around the country. As the name proclaimed, it was a department store selling various things under one roof. My memories are that they only sold these Japanese low-cost guitars & a bass or two. They hung behind a counter high on the wall. In fact, my choosing bass was purely visual - I was tall for my age and it was bigger and only had 4 strings and as far as I remember there was only one bass. So visually it stuck out and I thought.., that one looks cool- it should be easier to learn having only 4 strings.
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We had Thrifty and Woolworth in the same shopping center. Thrifties carried Teisco. Woolworth carried pretty much the same with different badges.
 
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#59
JIO said:
I'd have to look it up, but I don't know what a Fender or Ampeg amp would have costed then. I always thought getting a Heahkit was a cost-saving move.
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And it was. A Fender Bassman amp in 1967 cost $430. So my Heathkit at $335 was $95 cheaper. Doesn't seem like a huge amount by today's dollar, but in 1967 $95 would be $937.68 today.
 
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#60
JIO said:
And it was. A Fender Bassman amp in 1967 cost $430. So my Heathkit at $335 was $95 cheaper. Doesn't seem like a huge amount by today's dollar, but in 1967 $95 would be $937.68 today.
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Yep. We sorta forgot that. My first bass from the 1970 Sears Fall/Winter catalog. $77.95 with the flimsy case. That’s about $640 today.
IMG_1633.jpeg
 
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