Let me first state that I am not a musician and I do not know how to play any instrument.

That said, I'm looking to better identify a couple of Fender P-Basses beyond knowing that they are what they are in the broadest sense.

The complication of that is that I only have one picture of each from the front and do not have them in hand at present.

If I post the pics I have up here, do the P-Bass aficionados in the room think you can help me pin down the vintage of the units in question?

Thanks

Though I am not a P-bass aficionado, I do have a copy of Gruhn's guide to vintage guitars and may be able to help you out.

Serial number's gonna tell us as much or more than the pictures, but yeah, post them up.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Serial number's gonna tell us as much or more than the pictures, but yeah, post them up.

That's a fact, but these two bad pics are the best I can do at the moment: https://www.flickr.com/photos/...04/shares/m0646128qg

I'm working on getting them in hand, but that may be a bit. They belonged to a longtime family friend that passed several years back. His wife already sold a couple of his guitars and an amp and these are going soon.

I was under the impression that at the end, he was down to the one P-Bass, but apparently not.

I'm going to guess that both of these are late-1960's to early 1980's vintage as that was when he was the most actively playing as a hobby but if he bought them used, who knows?

I’m a guitar guy, not a bass guy, but I have to ask: Are these reported to be high-dollar valuable guitars? Have you asked the seller (assuming that’s who has the pictures) to tell you everything they know about the two guitars?

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
I’m a guitar guy, not a bass guy, but I have to ask: Are these reported to be high-dollar valuable guitars? Have you asked the seller (assuming that’s who has the pictures) to tell you everything they know about the two guitars?

They aren't reported to be anything other than basses owned by a deceased family friend and soon to be moved on down the line one way or another by his widow who is also a close family friend.

One or the other are being offered free to a family member that is interested in learning how to play bass and if either of these is something of value, we want to make sure everyone goes into the situation with eyes open.

https://reverb.com/news/a-time...ender-precision-bass

Not a ton changed from ‘57-‘83. A few variations spelled out in the link.

Well, both are pre-'84. They came with the "ashtrays" installed, those are the screw holes on either side of the bridges for the bridge covers. Rosewood fretboard was introduced in '59, so they're after that. The sunburst isn't a three color, it's a two color, but since they started doing three color sunburst in '57, it doesn't tell us much. It's interesting to me, though. The necks at least look to have nitrocellulose finishes, and they stopped using those in 1968 when they switched to vinyl based finishes. The colors and finishes both on the bodies and the pickguards are still correct for that timeframe.

Anything else I could try to tell you from the pictures is based on the assumption that they're all-original, and with Fenders going all the way back, people could and did swap stuff out. Basically, they're from somewhere between '59-'84 and I'd guess probably more like '59-'68. Without the serial numbers, we can't really narrow it down any more than that.

Thanks.

It would not surprise me if both of these were original, nor would it surprise me if my friend built these from parts or changed parts to fit his tastes.

I know from his stories that he and a cousin and some friends perpetually swapped gear around amongst themselves back in the day.

From what I can gather, serial numbers will likely be located on the neckplate of each of these?

They moved the serial number location around a fair bit over the decades. Here's a link with some good info.

https://bassguitarshack.com/pr...ating-a-fender-bass/

My suspicion is that it's more likely '59-'68 based on how the finishes look in those pictures. At the bare minimum, the finishes on the necks looks like nitro to me. If that's right for both, then you're looking for stamped dates on the bridges, and pulling off the pickguards to look at date codes on the pots or date stamps in the body cavities. Maybe, and more like probably, also pulling the necks off and checking in the neck pocket and the heel of the neck for anything from stamps, to painted numbers, to penciled numbers.