1936 Regal lined fretless upright ABG

[ilan]

On eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224274767161

[Highlander]

Whoah... you keeping tabs...?

But as for the postage...

[Basvarken]

Wow that's cool!

[Dave W]

It's an interesting curiosity, and so far not too expensive.

[Alanko]

An interesting piece. Unusual in that it has an upright bass bridge setup and quite a radius'd fingerboard. Its as big as an upright, so I wonder what the logic was behind it?

I recently bought a fretless ABG. I've been put off ABGs for years. In general they seem too quiet and they always have those stiff, lifeless phosphor-bronze strings. The really successful acoustic basses seem to be expensive and so re-designed that they no longer resemble oversized flat-top acoustic guitars, which is part of the appeal really.

My bass is a 'Crafter' which I thought was a bit of an economy brand! It is very nicely turned out for an economy instrument. My only contribution was to use Rustins Plastic Coating on the fingerboard. With tapewounds I can get a tone somewhere between a normal, boxy ABG and some subtle upright bass.

[morrow]

I've only seen pictures , but I love those things . I once had a chance to buy a bass mando in Toronto .

[ilan]

Unusual in that it has an upright bass bridge setup and quite a radius'd fingerboard

It's not radiused enough to play arco. Also the string spacing is much narrower and is more like a bass guitar's.

Its as big as an upright, so I wonder what the logic was behind it?

Much cheaper and easier to produce as a flat-top than a "real" bass. But as a result, it doesn't sound quite like an upright, more like a loooong scale fretless ABG.

Playing it must be very different from upright, with its neck block at the 14th fret, compared to an upright's 7th or 8th "fret" neck block. So no block position, and no thumb position.

Also, from the way the guy in the video is toying with it, it probably weighs not more than 1/4 the weight of a real upright. This also has an effect on sound.

[Basvarken]

Sounds good!

[ilan]

Sold for $1,905.

[Basvarken]

Not as much as I had expected.

[ilan]

It's a historically significant instrument but not very practical today. You won't show up at a gig with it.