Since you're a Rochester guy...some more info on Top Shelf Music in Buffalo that refinned that Fender Bass IV for me:
I also bought a pair of Hagstrom 8-string basses from them years ago. Maybe you remember the white reggae band Bahama Mamma for way back when reggae was just breaking in the US? I produced the live recordings of their album...we did remote truck recording at the Haunt in Ithaca for it. I was in the truck wondering how the bass player got the sound he was getting and went in between sets to see he had a Hagstrom 8 and he told me he'd just traded his red one in for his sunburst on at Top Shelf. So I went the next day to buy it. They also had a sunburst one that I thought was ugly, so I asked them to refin it into a really cool trans-black burst for me. They do amazing work...it came out stunning and I played it for years.
I called Top Shelf back when Sothebys was auctioning off Entwistle's stuff, to tell them that the Bass Vi they'd refinned for me was the one in the auction, in case Sothebys contacted them to verify the refinish.
I also mentioned that I still had the two Hagstroms. They laughed and said that Billy Sheehan came in a bit after I had them do that...saw a photo of my blackburst and loved it...and had them make him an identical Hagstom 8 to match mine!!
The joke is that Billy and my guitarist on my first album (Lou Gramm of Foreigner's brother, Dick/Richard Gramm/Grammatico) were roomates in Buffalo when I formed my band back then. Plus the drummer in my previous band who I'd just parted with (Mark Miller) ended up in Talas with Billy to replace his drummer. Dick and I both had custom guitars/basses made by a builder in that area who had just begun making things. Ours were among his first half dozen instruments...Ryan Brodesser Guitars. The day I'd picked up my finished bass from Ryan, I stopped at a birthday party for the vocalist (Holly Woods) of the Canadian rock band Toronto. Billy happened to also be there and checked out my new basss and I pointed out some ideas that I'd come up with for the bass ( a few which showed up on his Yamaha Attitude years later BTW.) The Rochester-Buffalo-Toronto club circuit was one of the best back then...lots of talent and comraderie.
BTW....Spyro Gyra got its original record deal by winning the unsigned band contest the radio station I was a DJ at. The same station used to do weekly live band broadcasts both from area clubs/collages and from our "downstairs studio"...which was basically an empty two car garage under the radio station that we threw some insulation and burlap up on the walls in. But it was historic....we could only fit maybe 30-50 people in for a show but had Robert Fripp, the original Journey, Gentle Giant and many more over the years. Even the Grateful Dead via live remote from a college. I also remember Brand X live from a local club because I was on-air that night and the show ended abruptly when Percy Jones' fingers were bleeding too bad on the third encore to play anymore. I'd gotten hired as a DJ while still in my teens. The youngest kid they ever hired and it was just amazing. I went to hundreds of free concerts over the year and was usually backstage or interviewing tha artists. Being an actual musican as well made it even greater. Wish I knew where the hundreds of 10-inch tape masters ended up. A real wealth of unreleased live material.
I've been really fortunate to have pretty much made it through my entire adult life and only worked music related jobs...musician, engineer\producer, DJ, journalist/editor, music TV reporter...and still be playing. It was just dumb luck because I never even applied for the original radio gig that started it all. My college roommate had an internship at that radio station and had taken them a demo of the morning college radio show I did, without my even knowing. Months later he called me for a ride back from the radio station when his car broke down...and the music director came out and said they'd hired me, could I start the next day. Total dumb luck....especially when I later saw a HUGE box of demo tapes from people from around the US who actually had applied to that station for DJ jobs.
If that hadn't happened, I probaby would now be an old, fat biology teacher with a haircut, regretting how life turned out. (But, then again...I'd have more room in my house without all this music gear