I love symmetrical shapes. That’s the kind of bass I’d like to make.

Having said that, I had a Vantage acoustic at some point in the 90s—worst sounding acoustic I ever owned. Solid concrete blocks couldn’t have been less resonant. I’d totally forgotten about it until I saw this photo. Ugh.

That's the shadow of the G-string.

These are excellent, well-made instruments. Matsumoku quality with appointments that will remind you of the Aria Pro II SB line at the time (also made by Matsumoku).

Absolutely, PJ- you can see the Vantage/ Aria Pro II family resemblance here. Much of that classic mid-eighties era of beautiful multi-laminate tone wood bodies and neck- thrus, etc. from brands like Aria, Greco, Ibanez, and Yamaha were directly attributable to or influenced by "Uncle Mat", but I'm sure there is still a lot of general misconceptions around vintage Japan built instruments where the higher profile brand name may be familiar, but the actual manufacturer is not:

Matsumoku produced guitars (and/or or parts) for Aria, Vantage, FujiGen Gakki, Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez), Nippon Gakki (Yamaha), Kanda Shokai (Greco). Washburn Guitars contracted Matsumoku to build some of its electric guitars and basses from 1979 through 1984 (though Yamaki was the manufacturer for the early Wing series). And in 1979 Matsumoku also began to market its own guitar line under the Westone name (Westone Thunder 1A active Bass, 1982):



In addition, American-owned Unicord contracted Matsumoku to build most of its Univox and Westbury guitars, as did Norlin (parent company of Gibson) for Epiphone guitars. St. Louis Music Company imported Matsumoku built Electra Guitars. J. C. Penney sold Matsumoku-built Skylark guitars through its catalog division. Matsumoku also built many Memphis, Westbury, Guyatone, Westminster, Vox, Cutler, Lyle, Fell and more...

But unfortunately, Matsumoku had to close down operations in 1987, so the brand names above reflect their involvement up to that point only. Into the 1990's and beyond, many of those brand names were sold and/ or changed manufacturers multiple times, thus the wide disparity in quality and sound from what Matsumoku was building back in the day.

I've never seen that Lemmy pic before, cool (Mark "The Animal" Mendoza in the background, clearly in awe of Lemmy's performance) !