Unbranded Precision Bass Style Electric Bass, Sunburst

Heavy play wear throughout. The grade is set by the finish and the hardware, which are the two worst axes.

Finish, front. Bare wood shows along the bass side rim, including a chip roughly two inches long below the upper horn and a scatter of smaller breaks further down, one of them a distinct C shape. The treble side edge beside the knobs has lost finish over a rough patch about an inch across. Light scratching over the whole face.

Finish, back. Dense fine scratching across the upper treble bout, the kind a belt buckle leaves, with a few deeper scratches through the gloss. Scratching over most of the rest of the back, and small chips through to wood along the lower edge.

Finish, sides. Chips and flakes scattered down the rim, concentrated on the lower half. The rim is otherwise high gloss and unbroken.

Hardware. The chrome pickup cover and the bridge cover are pitted and have lost plating in patches. All four tuner keys are tarnished and pitted; the gears and baseplates behind them are intact. The neck plate has a dense bloom of corrosion across its face and its screw heads are worn.

Neck and board. The fingerboard is clean, with light figure under a thin amber finish. Fret wear shows as flattening in the lower positions. One small chip in the board wood sits between frets on the nut side of the twelfth fret markers. The back of the neck and both faces of the headstock are an open pored wood under a thin, low sheen finish, worn smooth with handling.

Headstock. Bare on both faces. No logo, no decal, no serial. The small white truss rod cover is yellowed and grubby and its three screws have rusted.

Nothing is missing. Both chrome covers, all four tuners, both knobs, the finger rest, the string retainer, the jack and both strap buttons are present, and it is strung.

Electronics and setup. We have played it. It plays, the pickup works, and both controls do what they say. What has not been done is a straightedge on the neck and a count of the truss rod's remaining travel, so the neck and truss rod axis of the grade is unscored and the 6 is provisional on that one axis.

The bass and the black hardshell case it is photographed with. The case is rectangular, wood shelled and covered in black vinyl, with brass coloured latches and a carry handle. The vinyl is crazed and scuffed across the lid and it carries no badge. No strap, no cable, no paperwork.

The Precision is the shape most people picture when they picture an electric bass. Slab body, one pickup under a chrome cover, a volume, a tone, and nothing else asking for your attention. Fender introduced it in 1951 and it has been copied continuously ever since, which is how an instrument like this one comes to exist.

This one carries no name at all. The headstock is bare on both faces, the neck plate has no stamping, and no serial turned up anywhere on it. What it does carry is worth writing down, because it is the sort of detail somebody recognises: six screws hold the neck on where a Fender uses four, the truss rod adjusts at the headstock under a small white cover, the tuners are open gear with cloverleaf keys on individual base plates, and the back of the neck is an open pored wood under a thin, low sheen finish. If that adds up to something for you, tell us.

We have played it. It plays, the pickup works, and both controls do what they say. That counts for more here than it would on most listings, because with no name and no serial there is nothing else to judge it by.

The wear is the other half of it, and there is plenty. The sunburst has gone through to bare wood along both edges, the back carries years of belt buckle, and the plating has pitted and bloomed on the covers, the tuners and the neck plate. Nothing is missing from the instrument. It comes in a black hardshell case that has plainly taken most of the knocks on its behalf.

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

Right for you if you want a Precision to play rather than to look after. The cosmetic wear is already done, so the first mark you put on it costs you nothing. It plays and works as it sits, which means the money goes into the instrument instead of into a bench bill. And the case means it can live in the back of a car without you thinking about it.

Buy something else if you want a name on the headstock. There is no maker, no model and no serial on this one, so it cannot be dated, looked up in a price guide, or sold on later on the strength of a badge. You would be buying how it plays and how it sounds, and nothing else. If the picture in your head is a clean sunburst Precision, this is not it either: the finish is broken through in several places, the back is scratched deep, and most of the chrome is past polishing.