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Post subject: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 2:24 pm
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I just posted a neck/body question about the early 70s P bass I just bought. I have a couple more questions.

1. This thing is one of the heaviest basses I have ever picked up. I have a digital scale and it weighs 10 lbs and 12 Onces. My other 70s P Bass only weighs 8 lbs and 6 Onces !! It does have a Baddass II Bridge which adds some weight but not that much.
are differences like this normal?

2. It looks to be a natural finish. would that be the so called Walnut finish or Butterscotch or what ?

thanks folks.


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Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:40 am
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if its heavier than usual, probably its ashwood..

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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 12:52 am
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70's Fender basses are noted for being heavier. Weight sounds about right.


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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 1:14 am
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Not all 70's fender basses are heavy, mine is very light (74 jazz) but I agree it may be an ash bodied one, especially if it's in natural finish......


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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 2:04 am
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lazzer wrote:
Not all 70's fender basses are heavy, mine is very light (74 jazz) but I agree it may be an ash bodied one, especially if it's in natural finish......
My 71 Jazz easily weighed 13 lbs and I was so glad to get rid of it....at the time. Probably 2 pounds of that was candy apple red. Lightest Fender Bass I ever had was an ash blond Telecaster bass.


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Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:03 am
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Indeed, the '69 Telebass I had was pretty light...

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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 8:32 pm
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My Precision Elite II weighs 13+ lbs on my home scale. It sounds phoenomenal!
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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 2:02 pm
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My '70 reissue P-Bass weighs 9lbs 4ozs - a perfect weight for me - but a friend of mine had a Sonic Blue '66 P-Bass that weighed well over 11lbs. Nice bass, lovely neck, but it felt very heavy on the strap.


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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 12:20 pm
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My '78 P-bass with the natural finish weighed in at 10.5 lbs.

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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 1:11 pm
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Miss that weight of the old basses, that's one of the things that sold me on my VM Jazz.


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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 9:03 am
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When a bass is that heavy, 10 + lbs, its the piece of wood that it is made from that causes the weight, not the finish or the bridge.
Ash can weigh a substantial amount and there was no accounting for body weight in making guitars in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

You got what you got.

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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2010 9:33 am
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No-one, I think, has answered your question about the finish. Butterscotch Blonde (current Fender Color Code 50) is a really yellowish shade, with just a hint of the wood grain showing through. Walnut (Fender Color Code 92) is a deep brown, again with visible grain. I'm not sure of this, but I don't recall Butterscotch and Walnut being available in '70s P-Basses. What was available was Natural (the current Fender Color Code is 21) - a clear coat over an ash (AFAIK always ash) body. For more information on this see Black & Molinaro, The Fender Bass: An Illustrated History, Hal Leonard Corp. 2001, p.61.

Ash has a quite striking grain, and the natural finish shows it off perfectly. You can see a nice example in the current American Vintage '75 Jass Bass, http://www.fender.com/en-GB/products/search.php?partno=0190302821.


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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 10:51 am
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The walnut color was available from about 1974 on.
I use to call it babysh*t brown. (lol)

I have a natural finished 1972 Jazz bass (original finish) . It is stamped NATURAL under the bridge pickup.

It weighs 10lbs +. Its a pretty hefty Jazz bass, but it sounds great.

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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:17 am
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That's interesting, BC, I didn't know that about Walnut. TBH, the only Walnut finish I've seen in the flesh - er, wood - is a Squier Standard Jazz Bass, where it didn't look half as nice as it did in the pictures :wink:

Nothing like an ash Jazz Bass, is there? That natural upper-mid sound that seems to come with ash just suits the J-Bass perfectly :)


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Post subject: Re: bought old bass - Weight has me wondering
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:37 am
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Walnut was produced in great numbers throughout the 70's.
Many Strats, Jazz basses and Precision basses were done in the walnut finish.

Ash sounds great on Jazz basses as well as Precision basses, but I like alder and poplar too. A good piece of wood and a great pickup will always sound good on a well made bass like a Fender.

I live very close to Washington Music, which has been one of the biggest Fender dealers in the world since 1968. I used to always go into the store after school to look at the new Fender basses and guitars. I have been doing so since 1969. I watched the custom color Fenders sit because back then everyone who ordered a custom dolor didn't follow through and buy it.
So those Fenders were always marked down and often sold for less than the sunburst basses!
Tele basses were only $220 bucks in 1969 but that was still a lot of money back then.

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