Danelectro Hodad Bass, Three Pickup Select-O-Matic, Blue Metalflake

Clean throughout. This reads as an instrument that was played and then put away properly rather than one that lived in a van.

Finish, front. One fine scratch on the upper bass side bout, between the neck pickup and the horn. It is short and shallow and you have to catch it in the light. Nothing else on the face.

Finish, back. A short scratch running down and away from one of the body screws above centre, and faint swirl marks around several of the screw heads. The rectangular control cover has light surface scuffing across it. No buckle rash anywhere.

Headstock. The maple is natural and clean, the logo is crisp, and there is a small mark on the upper edge where it curves over. The paper serial sticker on the back is intact and legible.

Neck and board. The back of the neck is natural maple with light handling patina and some dark mineral streaking in the wood, which is how the wood came. The frets stand full with no divots. The rosewood board is even the length of the neck and would take a wipe of oil.

Hardware. Chrome on the tuners, the three pickup covers and the bridge is bright with no pitting. All four bridge saddles are there with their height and intonation screws.

Tape binding. The cream vinyl tape is intact the whole way round, with no lifting and no cracking, and some light surface marking along the lower bout. That tape is the thing to look at first on any Danelectro, and on this one it is sound.

Nothing here needs doing before it is playable.

The bass on its own. No case and no gig bag comes with it, so bring something to carry it in.

Danelectro brought the Hodad out in 1999, and it is the odd one in the modern catalogue. Nearly everything else the company built in that era was a reissue of one of Nat Daniel's 1950s designs. The Hodad was not. The body shape is borrowed from Mosrite, the guitar the Ventures played, and the construction underneath it is pure old Danelectro: a plywood frame faced front and back with masonite, vinyl tape round the edge instead of wood binding, hollow in between, and light in a way a slab of ash never is.

This is the three pickup version with the rotary switch. The dial reads Select-O-Matic and runs one through six, giving you each pickup on its own and then any two of them together in series. The small toggle above it steps around the dial and brings all three in at once. The Hodad basses that came later dropped to two pickups and a volume and a tone for each.

It is also long scale. Thirty four inches, the same as a Precision or a Jazz, which is not what most people expect from a Danelectro, because most Danelectro basses are short. It takes ordinary long scale strings and it sits under the hand like a bass you already know.

What stands out about this one is how little has happened to it. The blue metalflake is clean front and back, the cream tape is unbroken the whole way round, the chrome on the tuners and the pickup covers shows no pitting, and the paper serial sticker is still on the back of the headstock, which is usually the first thing to disappear. The sealed Gotoh tuners are the ones it left the factory with, with no extra screw holes behind them.

We have played it. It plays and the electronics work.

Pickup only. We are not shipping instruments yet, so this one is bought here: 215 East Lewis Street, third floor, Livingston, by appointment.

Buy this if you want a Danelectro and you want it long scale. That combination is rarer than it sounds, because the basses the brand is known for are short, and plenty of players who like what a hollow masonite body does have bounced off the feel of a thirty inch neck. This one is thirty four, so nothing about your left hand or your string drawer has to change.

It also suits somebody who already owns a bass that covers the ordinary ground and wants a second one built on a different idea. The body is a hollow frame faced with hardboard, the pickups sit straight into the top with no mounting rings, and the switching gives you each pickup alone, each pair in series, and all three at once. That is a lot of wiring to choose from on an instrument that weighs almost nothing.

Buy something else if it has to survive a van. The top and back are hardboard and the edge is vinyl tape, and tape lifting away from the body is how these get hurt. It wants a case and a back seat rather than a trailer, and there is no case with it.

Buy something else if you are after an original 1950s Danelectro. This is the Korean built revival, and the Hodad is a 1999 design rather than a reissue of anything. And buy something else if you want an active preamp, high mass hardware, five strings or a low B. Passive single coils in a light hollow body is the whole proposition here.