Old School Archives

We debuted “Old School” on April 25th, 2011, with a focus on sharing the great vintage bass gear from our readers. No surprise, the series has always been a popular one. Here are the top 10 reader favorite stories over the years since.

This time around, we’re checking out a unique hybrid of a bass, thanks to Gary Shea, who shares the story of his 1965 L Series Fender Jazz Bass with a 60’s Precision Neck. Gary has been happily playing it for nearly 50 years.

Derrick Cook emailed us with a story about an astonishing piece of gear: “I have a one of a kind Peavey VTA-800 that was handmade by Hartley Peavey as a prototype only in 1972 – 400-watt tube head 8×6550. It’s the only one ever made,” he shared. We asked him for more on this rarest of rare pieces of equipment....

Steve Leggett reached out to me with the story of a special bass: his 1964 Egmond Princess. Steve shares the history of this bass, including some great details on the company behind it. Make/Model/Year? It’s an Egmond Princess bass from 1964. How long have you owned it? Just over nine years now. How did you come across it? I was...

When our Instagram friend Eric Fortaleza posted a picture of his beautiful 1959 Gibson EB-2 Bass, we had to ask him to share his story with us. In this edition of Old School, we get the scoop. Here’s the story… How long have you owned it? Since Christmas 2013. I decided to buy myself a Christmas present. How did you...

Emre Kayaalp reached out to me with one beauty of a bass – his recently acquired 1969 Gibson Les Paul. According to the Wikipedia artcile on the instrument, the Gibson Les Paul bass “is a bass guitar first manufactured by Gibson in 1969, just after the relaunch of the Les Paul guitar in 1968.” That bass didn’t sell well, and...

A couple of weeks ago, Damian Erskine sent me an email filled with excitement. Here’s an excerpt: You know about my trip to pick up my dad’s bass in St Louis, right? Well, Jim Widner (who cared for it for the past 25 years) pointed out a name carved in the front. Faint but clear: “Shaw”. Apparently this was Arvell...

For many readers, the gold standard of basses is the Fender Jazz. For No Treble reader Ken Burgner, the Jazz is his dream bass. Ken started out with a 1972 Jazz with a Lake Placid blue re-finish. But when he saw a ’72 with a sunburst finish listed for sale on TalkBass, he knew it was the bass he had...

After featuring a beautiful 1969 Fender Precision Bass in our Old School series, Tim Wolfe, Jr. sent us a note about his 1962 Precision. Not only is this one great looking bass, the story is equally terrific. Tim’s grandfather gave him the bass after playing it for years. Here’s the story… How long have you owned it? Around a decade...

The 1963 Fender Precision Bass marked some changes to the long-running standard in electric basses. Earlier this year, Fender reintroduced the ’63 Precision Bass as part of their American Vintage line. At that time, the company shared some of this instrument’s unique history: “The year 1963 marks an important moment in Precision Bass history, because that’s when a comfortable new...

Our Facebook friend Cuzin’ Locust Johnson (AKA Mark) shares some old school goodness with us – his 1973 Acoustic Control Black Widow Bass. Acoustic Control Corporation’s Black Widow bass began in 1972, along with a guitar model of the same name. This was the company’s first and only guitar and bass model, according to the All The Transients guide to...

Bassist, designer and copywriter Adrian Elton shares his beautiful 1964 Höfner 500/1 this time around. Karl Höfner GmbH & Co. KG began building instruments in 1887, later becoming the largest manufacturer of string instruments in Germany. Much of the company’s popularity is attributed to Paul McCartney’s use Höfner 500/1 bass, three-quarters of a century or so later. To this day,...