Been playing ~20 years and I only have one. It's the second bass that I ever owned - a black MIM Fender P-Bass Special Deluxe Series. I bought it after months of lusting after it in '03 or '04 with money from my high school job loading topsoil into pickup trucks.
The finish is a satin black, and it's got an aluminum pickguard. Teenage me just thought it must be the coolest looking bass ever made. Plus, it had a P and a J pickup - two pickups must be twice as good, right? Plus, it was ~$400. At $7.25/hr, that was a goal i felt like I could actually meet.
Almost two decades on, I now realize what a superb instrument this really is. The split coil gives me that natural p-bass fatness, but I can introduce a nice growl with the J-pickup. (i've since swapped the stock pickups out for the EMG GZRs, and the growl is even throatier and more pronounced). Also, the deluxe series has a j-bass neck, which makes it feel fast and nimble to my hands. It's got that Fender Vintage bridge with the ridged saddles that give you more control over string spacing than the standard bridge. The nut isn't perfect, but I think it might be bone? It feels dense to someone who doesn't know much about nuts. And the matte black w aluminum pickguard seems to be a pretty rare find these days. It makes mine feel pretty unique.
When i pick it up and play it, I'm still kind of amazed that it's mine; that as a 16-year-old knucklehead trying to find the toughest looking axe, i lucked into this one. Isn't that pretty much the feeling we all dream of? I figure if i get that rush every time I pick up my MIM P/J, what the hell do I need another one for?
now, pedals on the other hand...
