Something weird with Warrior factory?

[pedulla-2007]

Seriously, no one has been abusive in this thread. They just aren't saying things you want to hear. Get over it.

Whatever you say Boss! This is your world, I’m just asking for a little room, please?

 

[Bass Viking]

Lol
That’s a first!
I’ve never played for a music director that even knew what a Ken Smith bass was!

I wonder if you could get away with the cheaper Ken Smith Design?

 

[Bass Viking]

Yes, the first chair required to have a Fodera with a Wal as a backup... Or maybe the other way around...

LOL! They'd accept an Alembic too.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Whatever you say Boss! This is your world, I’m just asking for a little room, please?

Is your bass with the Jazz body and J/MM pickups bolt on or neck through? I know Warrior made some boutique Jazzes recently, but most of their basses are all Barts with soap bars or MM style humbuckers. Your bass does not have Barts although that could easily be a custom request.

As for a small owners keeping records, plenty do. I had no problems getting a response from Michael Pedulla when I bought one of his basses second hand. Warrior, on the other hand seems to be a crap shoot. Their good basses are really nice, but they get many more complaints that most outfits that make boutique basses.

 

[Lesfunk]

Yes, the first chair required to have a Fodera with a Wal as a backup... Or maybe the other way around...

I knew there was money in religion but this is ridiculous!

 

[pedulla-2007]

Is your bass with the Jazz body and J/MM pickups bolt on or neck through? I know Warrior made some boutique Jazzes recently, but most of their basses are all Barts with soap bars or MM style humbuckers. Your bass does not have Barts although that could easily be a custom request.

As for a small owners keeping records, plenty do. I had no problems getting a response from Michael Pedulla when I bought one of his basses second hand. Warrior, on the other hand seems to be a crap shoot. Their good basses are really nice, but they get many complaints that most outfits that make boutique basses.

Thanks for constructive input,it is a bolt on J/MM configuration, and at this point Doc, I am so confused about both the basses. If you cannot ask the builder questions, then who can you ask? These purchases were long ago, and I never considered investigating their validity. Back then, you took a person at their word. I should have known Bassline pups in a Warrior would be odd.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Thanks for constructive input,it is a bolt on J/MM configuration, and at this point Doc, I am so confused about both the basses. If you cannot ask the builder questions, then who can you ask? These purchases were long ago, and I never considered investigating their validity. Back then, you took a person at their word. I should have known Bassline pups in a Warrior would be odd.

I honestly don’t know who you can ask. The fact that Warrior is hands off makes me suspicious of your bass. If it plays well just keep it. If you want to sell it, just have truth in advertising and let the chips fall where they may. My gut instinct would be to keep it if it is a good bass and enjoy it.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

As for makers keeping records, it just makes sense because it can shut down any sort of fraud or forgery. I also would not understand makers not sharing information with second owners because buyers sell their “dream” custom ordered boutiques all the time. I think every boutique bass I ever bought was second hand.

 

[bigdaddybass12]

I always thought that Ken Smith was the annointed bass. I auditioned for second chair at a gospel church and the choir director specifically asked for a KS for the audition.

No man...the annointed bass now is Squier!

 

[Altitude]

Further to Doc's last two comments, even if a builder didn't have easy access to documentation on a 20+ year old build, you'd think they at least would acknowledge it informally. "That looks like one of our early builds, parts around that time were generally sourced from XXX but it's hard to say exactly" or whatever. In this situation it seems Warrior is disavowing any knowledge at all about the bass.

Personally I feel bad for the OP, whose opportunity to go back on the seller for fraud is surely long past.

 

[Dr. Cheese]

Further to Doc's last two comments, even if a builder didn't have easy access to documentation on a 20+ year old build, you'd think they at least would acknowledge it informally. "That looks like one of our early builds, parts around that time were generally sourced from XXX but it's hard to say exactly" or whatever. In this situation it seems Warrior is disavowing any knowledge at all about the bass.

Personally I feel bad for the OP, whose opportunity to go back on the seller for fraud is surely long past.

Those are my feelings too.

 

[FunkHead]

You're a non-original owner asking a small boutique shop about 20 year old basses? Good luck with that. When I worked for a small boutique acoustic builder, I could hardly have told you what we put out the previous month, never mind anything 20 years old. And we would have never given you an appraisal, we would have referred you to a retailer for that. The most we could do would be to hunt through the file cabinets and try and find the build sheet to give you the list price at the time of sale...if and only if you were the original owner.

This sheds some light on things for me. I was naive about a similar situation regarding a (Strangely enough) Pedulla bass. I reached out to Pedulla about a ThunderBass 5 and was basically told some basic specs. They did not give me any specs about my particular bass but the general specs were pretty accurate.

I was expecting Mike to take me down memory lane about my exact build. Haha, That was such a stupid expectation on my part. At the time, I had unrealistic ideas, plain and simple.

As I look back on my 106 FSO builds, I can piece most of them together from pictures but they were all either P or Jazz fender shaped objects. Many of them were separated back into body & neck for shipping purposes or even sold as pieces....

 

[BBQisgood]

Thanks for constructive input,it is a bolt on J/MM configuration, and at this point Doc, I am so confused about both the basses. If you cannot ask the builder questions, then who can you ask? These purchases were long ago, and I never considered investigating their validity. Back then, you took a person at their word. I should have known Bassline pups in a Warrior would be odd.

They are giving you info: Warrior is uncomfortable commenting on this bass unless they can look at it themselves!

I think you are in a situation where they are uncomfortable because they have more than a suspicion that what you have is not a Warrior bass at least in part. They aren't refusing to help because of a bad disposition or attitude.

The info they have given you is a polite way of telling you they think you don't have a Warrior.

 

[bolophonic]

If somebody presented me with a fake Bolophonic product to verify, I would probably be more definitive about my position than Warrior sounds in this thread, but yeah... I don’t know anything about Warrior basses, except that I don’t expect them to look anything like that.

 

[lamarjones]

I'm guessing the J is a bolt on neck? Never seen a body from Warrior like that, I've had a bunch of the early ones. They DID use a lot of Seymour Duncans in the earlier days tho. But nothing close to that body style.

Same goes for the inlay on the second, but aftermarket inlays aren't that uncommon.

As for Warrior themselves, I've had several issues with them over the years, but I'm not surprised to hear them say what they said about both of these.

 

[chriss]

pedulla-2007, I can certainly understand your concern. Do you have any other pictures available? Perhaps ones that show each entire bass in one picture. That would certainly help the conversation along.

 

[FunkHead]

I'm guessing the J is a bolt on neck? Never seen a body from Warrior like that, I've had a bunch of the early ones. They DID use a lot of Seymour Duncans in the earlier days tho. But nothing close to that body style.

Same goes for the inlay on the second, but aftermarket inlays aren't that uncommon.

I'd be willing to bet that the weird cut at the end of the fretboard was done after Warrior made that neck.
I believe the neck was cut down to fit a Warmoth body(Less frets than normal).
Sadly, OP has a couple of almost Warrior basses that are basically worth little more than Used Warmoth parts.
The One with the Inlay (Funksomethingorother) may be worth something to that one bass player that it may or may not apply to.

 

[BigBigGuy44]

Take the neck off the jazz style and see if there is anything in the pocket that could identify it. You could also try calling Warrior back but this time, say, "Hey, I have bass serial numbers XXXXXX and XXXXXX, and would love to know more about them. Would you be able to tell me the woods used and specs?"

Maybe I missed it, but can you also post of a photo of the body on the P-Funk bass? There are threads on TB and Google images from the 100th Anniversary of NAMM. If this bass was there, maybe a photo from then will show your bass.

 

[jeff7bass]

I traded my old Ric into GC years ago (shoot me now) and GC took it apart and sent pics to the factory in CA to make sure it was all original. It was and I got decent money for it.

 

[p12bassnut]

Pull the neck on the Jazz and see what's in the neck pocket. You'll likely have your answer there.
Any Warrior I have had never needed a string tree, but perhaps this one did.
Also, Warrior typically puts the serial number on the back of the headstock.