The case arrived today. It's in pretty good shape. Not new, there are a couple of scratch lines on the back and the piece of leather which is meant to help pull the compartment open is missing. Apart from this, it seems not to have seen much use. It is perfectly clean, has no other marks than the strings of a bass slightly imprinted on the top inside and, surprise, even came with its original key. Now that's a rarity.
With 4.5 Kg, it is rather light and appears sturdy enough. I'm fine with the price. I know I could have got a new one from Thomann for the same amount, but I like the idea of reusing things others no longer need.
It came very nicely, tightly packaged. The man really made sure it would have a safe journey. Of course I had to pay a little extra for this. After all, the owner had not seen fit to offer shipping and lives in some rural area some 50km from Magdeburg, so no one bid. I knew this would happen, asked him if he would send, even offered to help. I gladly gave him the 20€ he wanted, half of which went to the post office anyway.
And there was a bass inside. Yes, it's a cheap, old Harley Benton no one wants, but I did. I liked the look on the pictures and am not disappointed. It is a little darker (I new that after running them through some auto-level thing) but the transparent finish shows the wood, which turns out even nicer. The fingerboard is beautiful dark rosewood with fiery brown streaks all along. I hoped for it from the pictures but this is better than expected.
Then it's new. Don't ask me how. This thing shows no signs of use. Not a mark, not a scratch, absolutely no wear, only flatwound strings which I take are Fender (green silk), not even cheap.
Only… holes. Five tiny holes around the pick-ups, as if something had been changed or rather mounted and removed. The pick-ups are at the exact same place as on product pictures I could find, so maybe someone did and undid an upgrade?
Termites? I hope not. The holes are not very visible so I'm still happy.
The case works and so does the bass, I had to give relief to the neck, which was so flat I could press the strings all the way on it. There was a bit of "neck buzz" on the D string where the 3rd fret would be. It took a full turn of the truss rod to get a minimal bow in it. Action is 2mm with the saddles all the way down. Not the lowest I've had but fine. It's a bass. Maybe that's why the neck was tightened so much? I'll do the intonation later. It's completely off. The saddles are of the type which are held in place by a screw underneath the string, so they have to be loosened completely each time an adjustment is made, tuned up again… Not a quick process. Don't ask me why I want to intonate a thing which doesn't even have fret markers beyond the octave. I'll do it because I want to ;-)
The electronic works too. Even without a battery, which I found strange. The pick-ups appear to be the active part, with very low output when no power supply is present but pretty high with one. The controls are two volumes and two tones, Les Paul style, wired the same funny way which shorts everything when one volume goes to zero.
The tone knobs work, although I'll want to check those pots. One is fairly progressive, the other more abrupt, but they work. I can use them.
The P and J pick-ups sound like a P and a J. Fine. I'm happy there too. The strings are funny. I never played flatwound before. At first I thought there was some plastic coating on them but it would make no sense. Very smooth. I like the sound too. It fits. Now I have basses with roundwound, tapewound and flatwound strings. And one with no frets :-(
I wanted this one because the pictures showed how the fingerboard has short white fret markings on the low side, some 5mm long. I liked that. Now I see these are not original, not regular enough. They were made by the owner and stop at the 15th. I might complete them all the way up to 24.
This and the tiny holes make it a flawed instrument, I suppose, one that had at least something of a life. I guess that's what one should expect to get from a stolen bass…
So how does it feel? Well, I'm not as horrified as I feared to be. I can play things when I pay attention, at least in the low half of the neck. It means I'll be able to learn to use that thing if I put the necessary work into it. The neck has a round, C-like profile and seems to be a little thicker than that of my Ibanez. I'll measure it sometime. The guitar is well balanced and just as nice to hold as the SR. It's very light too: 3.5 Kg.
I'm quite happy with my case so far.
One last thing: dots on the side of the fingerboard are centered. Someone please tell Henning.