Grabber Schmabber

[ilan]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275258817924

[Pilgrim]

I get it - - - - it's chambered, just missing one side of the chamber.  Er, right?

[Dave W]

I like the mention of Jaco Pastorius in the description. Jaco loved moveable P pickups. 

[Rob]

I like the mention of Jaco Pastorius in the description. Jaco loved moveable P pickups. 

Let's see. . . ruin a bass put a crappy drawer guide inside and set the pickup right where it was in the first place.  Sounds good to me Jaco.

[Alanko]

Sliding pickups always seem like a nice idea that is inelegantly executed. It would be nice if you didn't need to see all the internal guts and frameworks required to make it work. I do also wonder how many times you can move a pickup around with regular guitar wiring before a solder joint fails or something snags.

[Chris P.]

Warwick made quite a nice sliding pickup Star Bass for Guy Pratt.

[Rob]

Who had the siding pickups in the 70's"  Seemed more secure with 2 rails.

[uwe]

People who play Fender shapes are by definition not obsessed with looks. I cannot register any optical deterioration. The general rule with Fender is, the less you see of it, the better. Here the large cavity proves beneficial.

Jaco was of course famous for his fretless P Bass with that humbucker sound.

Ironically, it's the only fretless Fender model he could have played off the rack. IIRC Fender did not offer fretless Jazz Basses when he pulled the frets out of his in the 70ies. They had by then only done a small run of fretless P Basses with - surprisingly - maple boards, making it I guess the Unprecision Bass.

[ilan]

IIRC the fretless P was introduced in 1969 and had a rosewood board.

BTW my first Fender was a 1980 fretless P.

[uwe]

Your Fender knowledge beats mine. I concentrate on beautiful things.

My first bass was a Korean or Japanese "Johnny Guitar" Jazz Bass knock-off - I hated its looks, but it was all I could afford. To me back then it was the most un-RnR shape imaginable.



The shop also had a Burns Flyte for - roughly - 15x the price, I would have loved to have that.



Within a year or so I had turned the Johnny Guitar contraption into a fretless alright by wearing down the frets with my constant playing. 

As you see, my disdain for Fender shapes is deeply embedded in my childhood. 

[Basvarken]

Here's my contribution 

[uwe]

Oh my, your Grijpervogel is lovely Holländer, it would have me dancing in the moonlight in no time! And I would not just have chocolate stains on my pants either.

You've come a long way since peddling Czech rip-offs. 

Phil would have wanted you to play that run with a pick though. 

[Alanko]

Who had the siding pickups in the 70's"  Seemed more secure with 2 rails.

Westone 'Rail' bass?

[ilan]

My first bass was a Korean or Japanese "Johnny Guitar" Jazz Bass knock-off - I hated its looks, but it was all I could afford. To me back then it was the most un-RnR shape imaginable.

Mine was a 1967 Höfner 500/1 (blade pickups era), and it was far less RnR shape. 14-year-old me would have killed for your J copy. But eventually I didn't have to - a year later my parents got me a MIJ J copy, that I strung with 050 flats and the resulting action was such that you could fly a plane under the strings.

[uwe]

Well, it trained you then!