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Tacoma Thunderchief Owners Unite!

^^^

Yes, they're HQ'd in the San Francisco area, and I think the instruments are built in China. They've developed a very new bracing system which is said to allow greater vibration to the top. See the BC website and search "Boulder" here in titles/basses. Warwick Alien might be something to look at as well.
 
^^^

Yes, they're HQ'd in the San Francisco area, and I think the instruments are built in China. They've developed a very new bracing system which is said to allow greater vibration to the top. See the BC website and search "Boulder" here in titles/basses. Warwick Alien might be something to look at as well.
The alien German made?
 
Just got this at GC this weekend for a good price. I like it very much. Came with flatwounds. Plays great. Reviving this old thread.........this particular one has NO ELECTRONICS at all.....I will put some in in the near future.

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Resurrecting the thread....been wanting to try one of these for a long time, finally caught a decent price on Reverb at a time when I had money...should be here next week. It's a 2003 that left the factory sans electronics and has had a ust added, so no trapdoor. Has a factory hardcase and is already plekked and set up with tapes. One repaired top crack.
 
Resurrecting the thread....been wanting to try one of these for a long time, finally caught a decent price on Reverb at a time when I had money...should be here next week. It's a 2003 that left the factory sans electronics and has had a ust added, so no trapdoor. Has a factory hardcase and is already plekked and set up with tapes. One repaired top crack.
Congrats, I picked up a fretless at GC about 5 weeks ago and a set of chromes, they sounded a bit tinny to my ear so I went with La Bella low tension flats for a bit more but wow they sound beautiful! I love the 4 string sooo much that I have been looking for a five string. As fate has it one came up on Reverb tonight. I pulled the trigger after hemming and hawwing for twenty minutes. It looks in very good condition and comes with the original hsc. Am a old dude but fell like a 10 year old on Christmas!
 
IMG_1132.PNG IMG_1133.PNG IMG_1134.PNG IMG_1135.PNG IMG_1138.PNG IMG_1139.PNG I just got mine, and even having known how good to expect them to be, I'm blown away by this one. Definitely the best by a mile of the 3 or 4 I've played. Maybe the other ones I've played have been the allegedly inferior post-Fender ones. It's a beautiful fretless, the 5th Wing-series instrument made on August 20th, 1998.

I immediately set it up with kinda medium-high action (though with low nut-slots) so I can dig in for volume, as I bought it to loosely approximate an upright with Roto-88s for old-time stringband jams. It's sort of unbelievable how loud and powerful it is, and it plays nearly as easily as most electrics. I LOVE it.
 

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I ordered one about five years ago, all mahogany fretless. It was a beautiful instrument. It arrived generally unplayable and I had to have a pro set up just to get it adjusted properly, required neck shimming and removal of saddle material. After struggling with it for a few years I ended up selling it. Didn't have the playability and the acoustic sound was lacking in a real playing environment.

OTOH a friend of mine has a pre-Fender fretless five string that is one of the most incredible basses I've ever played in all regards. Play before you pay with these.
I bought my 1998 fretless (pre-fender) sight-unseen, and it's absolutely amazing. I made a new cocobolo nut and saddle for it, but it by no means needed it (just wanted it to be as uprighty as possible, Rotosound TruBass strings and the wood nut/saddle get it shockingly close). The only other Thunderchief I've ever played was also a pre-Fender, fretted, and it was owned from new by an acquaintance of mine and never professionally set up, it was just as dreamy. They really are something special.
 
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Since the Tacoma Guitars website is long gone and I had trouble finding out how to interpret a ThunderChief serial number, this originated on the official Tacoma FAQ:


How can I tell when my instrument was manufactured?

Manufactured dates can be determined from the serial number on the inside of your instrument
  • The letter in the first position refers to the year in which it was produced. The letter system began 1998 with the letter B. (B = 1998, C = 1999, etc.) If there is no letter in the first position, congratulations! Your guitar was one of the first units we produced!

  • The next three digits reflect the Julian calendar date of the manufacturing year by number of days. (105 = the one-hundred and fifth day of the year, etc.)

  • The '5' in the 4th position reflects that this instrument has a 'bolt-on' neck. If the number were a '0' it would reflect a standard set-neck instrument.

  • The next two digits reflect the daily production number.

  • The final digit of '0' denotes that it is a First Quality instrument.
 
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