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What gear did you start off with?

K-Mart POS $26 special 6 string with the nut recut and only 4 strings installed. Repainted it light blue metallic. Also used a mono 10w. hi-fi pre/tube amp and with a home made 1x8 cabinet. Louder than you would think. Don't know what happened to it.

I picked up a Aria violin bass, then a Hagstrom(don't remember the model). I played those though a Vox Viscount 2x12 which was actually a guitar amp. Cool amp with effects and all built in. Sold it to get a Kustom 100 with 2x15 JBL cab. Pretty good sounding, not too much head room.

I was then able to get an original Hofner. Played that for a couple of years until picking up a '64 Fender Jazz(white/tort). See avatar pic. Wish I still had that one!.

I then picked up a new Sunn 2000s with the 2x15 JBL matching cab. The music store(which I had been working with for quite awhile for other stuff) let me put $100 down and pay off the remaining $1,000 at $100 per month (no interest, no signed contract).
 
Circa 1987 - Ibanez Roadstar 2 and a Silver Face Fender Deluxe Reverb

Re: bass .....i had a Vantage 4 string kicking around from '99 till this past summer 2010 ....i hardly played it ...recorded the odd track with it ....when i got serious about bass this past june i went straight to the good stuff ....American Fender Jazz 4 string and a Soundgear SR 500 .....recently picked up a Fender rumble 350 ....it's no Ampeg but it works pretty good!
 
In 1968 my first bass was a rented '65 Gibson EBO. Eventually bought it!

My amp was an old Capehart am/fm/shortwave radio that had a speaker that had no magnet! Instead there was a tube socket type connector for the electromagnet coil :eek: so I built a speaker cabinet and a box for the amp. to bad I didn't take pictures!!

Still have the Gibson Mud bass!
 
Around '78 (my sophomore year), my mom got me a Global bass out of a Sears (or was it Penney's?) catalog. I saved my money from working as a busboy at a restaurant and got a Holmes combo amp with something like a whopping 30 watts. The next year I upgraded to a Peavey TKO 65 combo, and my senior year I joined a band and picked up an aluminum-necked Kramer DMZ 5000 (which seemed cooler than the Rick 4001 I'd been lusting over in the catalogs). That was the start of my adventures with GAS...
 
my grandfathers 1960 fender jazz. till i was able to buy my own. i hated giving it back. he stoped playing in the early 80s so it just sat around collecting dust till around 98 when he lent it to me for a year. its been sitting in a case and hasnt been played since i brought it back to him in 99.