1973 Fender Precision Bass With Fretless Rosewood Fingerboard

Up for sale is a highly customized 1973 Fender Precision Bass with a Fretless rosewood fingerboard. This is one of those incredible basses that is far better than the sum of it's parts. The neck is an original 1973 maple neck with slight flame figuring and a fretless rosewood fingerboard with original Fender® logo nickel tuners. The body is also an original 1973 Fender alder body which has some very nice flame figuring along the upper bout.

Everything else about this bass has been customized to make it one of the coolest P basses that I have ever played. At some point in this bass's life it was routed to install a Jazz bass pickup as well as a first generation Badass bridge, which needed to be recessed into the body to get the action low enough. When they routed the body they also stripped it down, stained it a light mocha brown color, and refinished it with a nicely done gloss finish. The staining really helps to bring out the flame figuring from on the upper bout.

When I received the bass it had active EMG pickups and electronics which I decided to swap out for a wonderful sounding set of cocobolo covered Reed James pickups with a volume, volume, tone setup. These pickups give the bass a very rich woody tone with just the right amount of grit that perfectly compliment the fretless rosewood sound. I also installed a custom made stainless steel engine turned pickguard to give the bass a super cool hotrod look.

The bass is currently setup with a set of Labella tape wound strings which pair perfectly with the warm woody tone of the pickups and fretless fingerboard. The fingerboard has been honed down which allows the action to be setup like butter. The honed fingerboard combined with the tapewound strings make this bass incredibly comfortable to play. The bass is in good condition, but it definitely shows some signs of it's age such as scratches, chips, and some buckle worming.

This bass might just look like another players grade Fender Precision Bass, but once you feel how comfortable it is to play and hear how incredible it sounds you will understand why I say that it is greater than the sum of it's parts. I will be sad to see this bass go, but I have other fretless basses that I play more often and this bass definitely deserves to be used more often than it is. Please feel free to ask any questions and I know that whoever buys this bass is going to love it!