A FENDER PRECISION ‘SALMON PINK’ BASS GUITAR, 1962/63, SERIA...

Hammer

£3,500

A FENDER PRECISION ‘SALMON PINK’ BASS GUITAR, 1962/63, SERIAL NUMBER 73968
116cm x 33cm max 

The Precision or P-Bass as it is commonly called, is undoubtedly one of the most influential and most copied guitars in the bass playing world. The prototype was designed by Leo Fender in 1950 and was initially designed to bridge the gap between the size, skill and the amplification issues required to play a double bass, twinned with the ease and portability of a more convenient instrument.

It was launched in 1951 and was initially and unsurprisingly met with contempt by double bass players. However, the ‘rest is history’ as they say, with the P-Bass eventually proving to be one of the defining bass guitars in electric guitar history as its capabilities proved its essential qualities in the evolution of funk, soul, blues and rock.

This example was a favourite of James’ and as is noted in some correspondence he asserts it's known history from about 1966 onwards. The back plate has a 1962 serial number and the neck is 1963. As James writes in a letter to the author of The Fender Bass, Klaus Basquiz in 1993 (a copy of the letter comes with the bass), why is this? Almost certainly, the guitar was assembled from stock items giving a date anomaly but the ‘myth’ of the salmon pink fender is the question most people would ask. Why is it this colour? As is commonly known, some of the early paint colours used by Fender faded and this was the case with ‘fiesta red’, which due to inconsistencies in paint application and lacquering, faded to ‘salmon pink’. James notes that he had the ‘pink’ finish on his P-bass professionally restored but when it was stripped back it was found to have a sunburst finish underneath. Hank Marvin played a red Stratocaster in the ‘60s and it’s also thought that this added to the popularity of the colour with importers such as Selmer actually respraying guitars to satisfy this market. 

This is an eminently playable bass with beautifully mellowed varnish, perfect patination and honest wear to the back of the neck with patinated machine heads, a rosewood fretboard with clay markers, tortoiseshell scratch plate, split coil pickup, replacement chrome work, lacking finger rest/tugbar, with knurled tone and volume knobs and professionally refinished in ‘salmon pink’. It comes with a modern hard case.

Sold with non-transferable CITES A10 certificate No. 613902/01