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The 1st ever made Precision Bass

#61
JimmyM said:
i saw steve fossen with heart, and that dude was a real bass whore. changed basses pretty much every song and never used the same one twice. unfortunately, that meant he had to be remixed every song, too, and that show made me decide that changing basses all the time is for the birds ;)
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When I saw Steve with Heart in 1977 (touring behind the Little Queen album), he used a black Bicentennial Thunderbird for the entire show. He must have finally figured out that he was better off with that than some old Fender...:hiding:
 
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#62
lowend1 said:
When I saw Steve with Heart in 1977 (touring behind the Little Queen album), he used a black Bicentennial Thunderbird for the entire show. He must have finally figured out that he was better off with that than some old Fender...:hiding:
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right. that's why at the show i saw in 81 he trotted out several vintage fenders.

nobody likes a smartass :cool:
 
#63
The oldest Precision to surface so far has a neck date of 9/18/51 and a serial number of 144 and is in the hands of its original owner, the next oldest is serial number 42 with a neck date of 11/19/51 and it is in my possession, prior to the middle of september 1951 Fender didn't have the machinery to make the neck. anything before that would have to be a hand made prototype and hasn't surfaced yet.
 
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#64
I was at the Seattle guitar show last week, and a Nov '51 Precision was there on display, serial number 14. It's currently owned by a local vintage shop. It was in extremely nice shape, but changed pickguard.
I took a picture of it, I'll have to post it up when I get home.
 
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#65
Bflat said:
The oldest Precision to surface so far has a neck date of 9/18/51 and a serial number of 144 and is in the hands of its original owner, the next oldest is serial number 42 with a neck date of 11/19/51 and it is in my possession, prior to the middle of september 1951 Fender didn't have the machinery to make the neck. anything before that would have to be a hand made prototype and hasn't surfaced yet.
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To us mortals. Hey Bflat - who are you? Not necessarily name and address, but what are you doing with that bass? How'd you get it? Huh, huh? :hyper:
 
#67
Bflat said:
The oldest Precision to surface so far has a neck date of 9/18/51 and a serial number of 144 and is in the hands of its original owner, the next oldest is serial number 42 with a neck date of 11/19/51 and it is in my possession
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wow, you must be loaded! i'm surprised you're on here...if i were you, i'd be in the back of my own private armored truck rolling around in a pile of $100 bills like a crazy person every day!

:D
 
#69
Casa de kick,
I now have 5 51's all of them are in Detlef's new book "1951-54 Precision Basses" as far as how and where I got serial number 42. I bought it from JK Lutherie in 1999 for 1000 bucks. It was in sad shape and had to be restored. 51's were made in batches the first batch other than serial number 144 have body dates from 10/30/51 to 11/7/51, I know of 7 with these dates. serial number 14 is one of these also. the necks were made from 11/19/51 to 11/21/51. nothing has surfaced between the 9/18/51 bass and the 11/19/51 bass yet. I don't know why...... there are only about 25 that have surfaced so far..
 
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#71
Bflat said:
Casa de kick,
I now have 5 51's all of them are in Detlef's new book "1951-54 Precision Basses" as far as how and where I got serial number 42. I bought it from JK Lutherie in 1999 for 1000 bucks. It was in sad shape and had to be restored. 51's were made in batches the first batch other than serial number 144 have body dates from 10/30/51 to 11/7/51, I know of 7 with these dates. serial number 14 is one of these also. the necks were made from 11/19/51 to 11/21/51. nothing has surfaced between the 9/18/51 bass and the 11/19/51 bass yet. I don't know why...... there are only about 25 that have surfaced so far..
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No pics, no basses :D
 
#74
Here is one of them......
 

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#80
uglyrumor said:
Actually Fender started in 1946, making lap steels, same year L.C. Keisel started, doing the same thing. Keisel actually made a better product, in my opinion, but Fender had better marketing. Keisel tried to mail order, but whether because he wanted to save money and pass the savings on or because he wanted to keep more, I am not sure. Fender wound up making more, on the Walmart sell-a-lot, make less per unit. Keisel eventually changed the name of his company to Carvin, and except for a short period in the 80's, still markets by mail order. The experiment in the 80's failed because the music store made more directing the customers to higher profit products, like Fender or Gibson (with their high volume requirements to maintain a franchise), so Carvin reverted to mail order. Fender was notoriously slow to improve his product, where-as Carvin was first with adjustable pole pick-ups, ahead of Fender with truss rods, and made a consistently better product.
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:D
 

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