Identifying bass (identified thanks)

[stratzkiboy]

(moderator's note: as noted below, this kind of post can be quite useful to future readers, so I'm restoring it. Editing is really only for purposes of clarification, not deletionl)

Hi Guys! I need help identifying the age of a supposedly "vintage" Fender Bass I got as part of a trade. The Fender Logo on the headstock has been obscured by age and dirt along with (what i think to be is) the serial #. It has a stylized F on the neck heel plate and stamped Fender Hardware with a Badass Bridge.

I opened up the neck slot and here's some data on it.

On the neck pcoket I can see FRR40 and FRR32 stamped on it.
For the neck pocket I can see FRR40 and FRR21 stamped on it with a sticker with these names: A. Gradillas, J. Mora, A Hernandez, N. Leon and J. Torres

Here some pics for better reference:

Neck Pocket



Neck Heel



Knobs



Hardware



With OHC



Is this Bass of any value and can I get a decent price out of it as is?
I plan on taking it to a luthier for some TLC and to restore it to be playable, though.

All info would be helpful!

Thanks!!


+ identified thanks

[stratzkiboy]

Oh! The Pot's info is this:

250k A R1377849 013348

[Dave W]

The pot code indicates 1978 made by CTS. I'm highly suspicious of the rest but no way to tell from those photos. The body wood doesn't look like either alder or ash. The headstock looks too small. A rosewood board Fender neck from that era would not have a skunk stripe or walnut plug. The pickguard certainly isn't from that era either. And any headstock where the decal looks burned off is probably a fake. Hard to tell about anything else.

[stratzkiboy]

Guy i got it from also claims that its a 74/75 with an upgraded brass pickguard and pots and badass bridge. Im a total noob with basses is this a P or a J bass? Or something else? Any tips on how I can provide better photos for identification?

identified thanks

[Immo]

All those names on the stamp sound Mexican, so maybe it's a MiM neck? Those weren't made in 70's though.
It's a Precision Bass. The body is made out of strange wood. It looks like ash to me. Maybe swamp ash. Tuners look like replaced and the string tree is certainly non-Fender. To me it looks like a motley parts bass. My Fender-Geek-Buddy says it's a regular P that survived a house fire, but I'm suspicious of "convenient" location of the place burned - right on the logo location...

[JBennett]

Looks like it was in a fire.

[Immo]

Stratzkiboy, pardon me for sayin' so, but WHY to edit all your post? Maybe someone in the more or less distant future would have the same problem as you and would like to use TDPRI's help? All the posts on the forum should be left for the "future generations". Now the thread is nonsensical and lefts us who answered look a bit silly.
I just don't understand editing posts like that, no hard feelings.

[Tim Armstrong]

Originally Posted by Immo

Stratzkiboy, pardon me for sayin' so, but WHY to edit all your post? Maybe someone in the more or less distant future would have the same problem as you and would like to use TDPRI's help? All the posts on the forum should be left for the "future generations". Now the thread is nonsensical and lefts us who answered look a bit silly.
I just don't understand editing posts like that, no hard feelings.

I agree, and restored the deleted posts.

Tim

[Tim Armstrong]

Originally Posted by Immo

All those names on the stamp sound Mexican, so maybe it's a MiM neck? Those weren't made in 70's though.
It's a Precision Bass. The body is made out of strange wood. It looks like ash to me. Maybe swamp ash. Tuners look like replaced and the string tree is certainly non-Fender. To me it looks like a motley parts bass. My Fender-Geek-Buddy says it's a regular P that survived a house fire, but I'm suspicious of "convenient" location of the place burned - right on the logo location...

Fender has always had Hispanic folks working for it in California, just off the top of my head two of the most famous being Tadeo Gomez and Abigail Ybarra.

It looks kind of like an alder body to me (really tight grain) that someone stained. It's definitely beat up, and changed enough to make it not particularly valuable to a collector. If it's a good-playing, good-sounding bass, I'd probably say it's worth $300 or so, to me anyway.

Tim

[ThreePlyGuy]

Perhaps more to some of us.

[stratzkiboy]

Sorry for the edit guys! :-) Just got used to my other forum wherein the mods insist that you have answered posts deleted for space. Bass is now with my bro whos more knowledgeable regarding these things and he found a serial at the base of the neck. Im gonna look at it today. Thanks for the help guys didnt mean to offend anyone by deleting the posts.

[Dave W]

That's not a 74-75 Fender neck, either. Same as I said above if it were from 78: a rosewood board Fender bass neck from that era would not have a skunk stripe on the back or a headstock plug on the front. Also, a real Fender neck from that era will not have a serial number at the base of the neck.

I have to disagree with Tim, I've seen tight grained alder before, but that wood is not alder, and it's not ash either. If it's a real Fender body, it's not from that era and not made in USA.

[stratzkiboy]

Hi! The fingerboard isnt rosewood its maple that has been discolored. My cams pics seem to make it worse and the grains of the wood seem different also because of my crappy camphone. Will bring it to a luthier for a minor restoration and trade it for a guitar since im not bassist. Im gunning to trade it for any MIA Fender Strat or an SG. Thanks for the help!

[Flakey]

Its worth the sum of its parts and the condition they're in.

[Dave W]

Originally Posted by stratzkiboy

Hi! The fingerboard isnt rosewood its maple that has been discolored. My cams pics seem to make it worse and the grains of the wood seem different also because of my crappy camphone. Will bring it to a luthier for a minor restoration and trade it for a guitar since im not bassist. Im gunning to trade it for any MIA Fender Strat or an SG. Thanks for the help!

The fingerboard may be darkened maple or some other wood, but it's NOT "discolored" maple -- it's clearly a uniform color that's different from the maple visible on the headstock and neck heel. Whatever the reason, it's been done deliberately. Just like whatever has been done to the headstock.

The body wood is NOT alder or ash. Your camera can't disguise the fact that it's clearly an open-grain wood. Alder is a close-grained wood. Ash has open grain but looks nothing like that.

You have a body and neck of unknown origin, but not a 70s Fender. You have vintage tuners and a pot from 1978. The other hardware and electronics are unknown.

If you represent this to anyone as a vintage American Fender bass, IMHO you are severely misrepresenting it.

[Cadfael]

'identified'???

The pot code was of cause important.
7849 is 49 cw 1978. Keeping the transport and stocking in mind, this should be a 1979 Fender Precision bass.

Mr. J. Torres is well known and his necks have a good reputation. He worked at least from January 1975 to January 1981 for Fender CBS (in the USA). I watched more than hundered Fender basses and his stamps were on basses I could date and which were original (as far as I could see by tzhe photos).

I also have photos from a bass January 1979 with 'J.MORA' on it. A. Hernandez worked for Fender too in 1979.

This bass looks to me like an original (and raped) 1979 P-Bass.
The bridge, string tree, pickguard and maybe other things were changed.
But the neck and body look like raped original Fender USA parts.

The capacitor and the way it is soldered look 100% correct.

We would surely need better photos! How does the end of the neck and the truss rod 'screw' look like?

If this is a fake, it's an expert fake!
The lacquer bores are where they should be and stamps look correct.

The paper on the neck was regularly used from 1981 on (with FRR numbers).
Maybe these papers were used earlyer - or this is a 1981 Precision and someone found the pots somewhere (which would not be impossible for Fender).