Bass of the Week: Mayones Elegance 5 Paper

Mayones Elegance 5 Paper Bass

Some basses are a piece of history, and then some are made from pieces of history. As part of their Master Builder Collection, Polish company Mayones unveiled the Elegance 5 Paper, a limited edition 5-stringer covered with reprints of newspapers, some dating back 100 years. The clippings are from all over the world: Poland, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Mayones describes the bass as a “witness of the past telling its story with rumbling bass tones.”

The Elegance 5 Paper features neck-thru construction, coupling a profiled American ash body and flamed maple top with a 9-ply maple/mahogany neck. The ebony fingerboard has a 20” radius with 24 medium jumbo Ferd Wagner frets. A Schaller 2000 bridge and M4 tuners round out the hardware, while the electronics consist of a a pair of Bartolini Soapbar pickup and an Aguilar OBP-3 active preamp.

As with the rest of the Mayones Master Builder Collection, the Elegance 5 Paper is hand built and limited to 10 pieces. The builder lists its retail price as € 4,149 (~$5,732 USD). For more info, visit the Mayones website.

Mayones Elegance 5 Paper Gallery:

Mayones Elegance 5 Paper Specs:

  • Construction: Neck-thru-body
  • Body: Profiled American Ash
  • Top: Flamed Maple
  • Neck: 9-ply / Maple-Mahogany
  • Headstock: Angled
  • Fingerboard: Ebony
  • Fingerboard Radius: 20” (508 mm)
  • Scale: 34.25” (870 mm)
  • Frets: 24 medium jumbo Ferd Wagner
  • Markers & inlays: Mother of Pearl dots
  • Tuners: Schaller M4
  • Bridge: Schaller 2000
  • Pickups: H-H / Bartolini 72M45C-T (bridge) and Bartolini 72M45C-B (neck)
  • Electronics: Aguilar OBP-3 active preamp
  • Control 1xVolume,1xBalance,1xMiddle,1xTreble/Bass
  • Knobs: Standard metal dome knobs
  • Body finish: Paper
  • Neck finish: Paper
  • Headstock finish: Paper
  • Hardware color: BLK (black)
  • Strings: GHS
  • Additional equipment: Ebony nut, Switchcraft jack, Schaller Security Straplocks, Hardcase

Get Bass of the Week in your inbox.

Don’t miss a Bass of the Week. Sign up for email alerts (every Monday).

Share your thoughts

  1. I would not call myself a specialist by any means, but a 20″ radius seems a little odd !

  2. This bass has excellent materials for the construction of it but the paper finish reminds me of the Fender Squier OBEY series. Still very cool!

  3. This has got to be the ugliest and downright stupid looking bass. Some ideas are good but some deserve to be in the scrap heap. File this under scrap. Sand it down and try again. A waste of good newspaper.