New find: A Masada

[idtandy]

Found this Bass Guitar. Masada Performer Bass.

http://flsurvival.com/video/view_item.p ... lection=12

[VintAxe]

Nice looking bass idtandy. Do you know anything about the builder?

[idtandy]

Know nothing about this Bass.
I've found very little on line.

[VintAxe]

Well, based on the logo, it looks like your bass was made by the same company that made this Les Paul shown on Jedistar's site.



Unfortunately it appears Jedistar doesn't know much about them either.

Here is an old Guitarsite thread where others are looking for information.



Here is a Masada P Bass also from the Performer series:



Looks like the consensus is that they are Japanese and built in the 1970's. I haven't found much beyond that so far.

[idtandy]

Thanks,not much out there.
Found this
http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/85982

It plays and sounds great.

[VintAxe]

Well idtandy, I certainly can't prove it, but I would say your guitar was built at one of the factories that supplied Aria Pro II guitars. It has late 1970's early 1980's build characteristics I associate with Aria Pro II.

First, the recess around the knobs and jack is unusual at this time. However, it was used on the Aria PE series of guitars that came out in 1977.


I can't really see the neck construction, but the 5 piece laminate neck-thru body style is also characteristic of Aria guitars in the late 70's. You can see a neck-thru version of a 5 piece here, but they also used the laminate style bodies on bolt neck guitars.


So, I think Masada was buying guitars from one of the factories supplying Aria with their guitars. Of course, one of these factories was Matsumoku, I'm not sure about the name of the other supplier.

[idtandy]

Thanks for putting those pictures up.
It's a well made Bass.Glad to have found it.
Masada Guitars seem to be few and far between and Japanese

[idtandy]