My "New" 1978 Fender P....

[fivebass52]

Sorry it's taken so long to post up pics of this bass. You may recall I posted a thread with a couple of pics back in March. Here's more of the interior etc...



You can see the chips out of the edge of the fingerboard. I think the prior owner had a lot of acid in his sweat, as the chrome on the knobs is eaten off, the bridge is corroded, and the finish on the neck has been eaten/chipped away. Not going to have it fixed though, it's got great mojo...

[fivebass52]

More pics....



From what I saw on the internet, I believe these are DiMarzios... the foam was old and spongy...


Rubber spacers that come with DiMarzios... that's why I think they are D's....

[fivebass52]

Pots etc...





Had a hard time breaking some of these screws free....

[fivebass52]

Last pictures... From what the owner of the guitar shop I bought it from told me, the original owner had passed away awhile back, and his brother had sold it to Dan's Guitars in Honolulu, where I found it. I'm going to post these pics up on Facebook, and see if any of my music buddies have ever heard of him. Looks like he left his name and Social Security number in the aluminum shielding, and someone had scratched over the SS#... For now, out of respect for the owner, and all of the years of natural "relic-ing", I've left it alone, other than lower the action a bit. Strings are fairly new, and sound good,and the bass sounds great! I've been a 5-and-6 string player for years, but I've been playing this P-bass exclusively since I got it out of layaway in May.... love playing this bass, and it fits in so well with the Blues, and Classic Rock bands I play in! Best $1100 I've ever spent!

[Linnin]

Congratulations on a fine find! Keep it forever as Fender isn't making new left handed Precisions at all any more.

[Moses]

Nice!! Welcome to the '78 club!

[cangaroo]

The PU doesn't look at all like a DiMarzio. It is a standard Fender P PU with white cover.

Fender started equipping Basses with white-covered PU between late 70s and early 80s.
Despite the serial S8 your bass could be a 79/80/81/82er, so check the pot serial and also the serial number stamped on the Pickup.

Anyway, good looking bass !!

[Matt R.]

Very nice. I really need a PBass in my life again.

[fivebass52]

The PU doesn't look at all like a DiMarzio. It is a standard Fender P PU with white cover.

Fender started equipping Basses with white-covered PU between late 70s and early 80s.
Despite the serial S8 your bass could be a 79/80/81/82er, so check the pot serial and also the serial number stamped on the Pickup.

Anyway, good looking bass !!

The other pot has solder all over it. Does this look like the original pot?


IN this pick, you can see the bottom of the PU. Don't see any numbers. Did Fender use the tubing seen here as spacers? I've seen DiMarzio PU sets that had the same colored tubing, and similar foam in their sets, and that's why I thought they were DiMarzios...

[fivebass52]

Not sure why Imgur decided to make the PU picture so huge... sorry 'bout that!

[gravesbass]

There are some inconsistencies here. It appears to be a parts bass.

S9 on headstock decal is Seventies Nine (1979) but could be as late as 82 (remember, fender recycled the lefty serial logo decal and used them at later date builds upon custom orders)

78 on body decal doesn’t match the the 79 decal on headstock

Pots - replaced?
137 = CTS Number
91 = Year 1991
37 = Week Produced

[fivebass52]

There are some inconsistencies here. It appears to be a parts bass.

S9 on headstock decal is Seventies Nine (1979) but could be as late as 82 (remember, fender recycled the lefty serial logo decal and used them at later date builds upon custom orders)

78 on body decal doesn’t match the the 79 decal on headstock

Pots - replaced?
137 = CTS Number
91 = Year 1991
37 = Week Produced

Thanks for the additional info. What are your thoughts on the pickups - Fender, or replacements? And, when you say parts bass, wasn't it typical of Fender, especially after the CBS era, to assemble left hand basses with parts that were laying around?

[fivebass52]

After seeing the recent thread on "70's P-basses http://www.leftybassist.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10505 , and noticing the instructions on how to date the CTS pots, I realized my '78 P-bass has a pot dated from '91... has to be a replacement... still, from the comments above, this bass is a hodge-podge of assembled lefty parts, so who knows when it was actually assembled, and sold? Doesn't matter though, as it's the "real deal" and I'm very happy to own it!

[bobjones2260]

For the SSN it may seem crazy that someone would put that on the bass but back in the day it was a good way for unique identification. I found my old Penn State Student ID card from 1983, I was shocked to see my SSN was also my Student ID but then remembered back then the SSN was just a number and widely used by schools ect.

[fivebass52]

For the SSN it may seem crazy that someone would put that on the bass but back in the day it was a good way for unique identification. I found my old Penn State Student ID card from 1983, I was shocked to see my SSN was also my Student ID but then remembered back then the SSN was just a number and widely used by schools ect.

When I moved to Oahu, Hawaii way back in 1978, the SSN number was used as your driver ID.... about twenty years, the state finally realized that wasn't such a great idea, and no longer use it....