NBD- Bradley Rickenfaker 4003

[mkt3000]

I'm in Orlando for the weekend. My sister, her husband and I were supposed to meet for beers at 5:30 in the Ivanhoe neighborhood.

That means a second visit to my new favorite used and vintage guitar shop: Blackbird Vintage Music... since it's around the corner from the bar.

I swear I didn't want to buy anything. My intention was to check out a silver sparkle Ibanez Jet King with P90's, but this bass got my attention and told me to plug it in - so I did. And damnit, it sounded lovely. And the neck was comfortable.

Then it screamed at me: BUY ME YOU BITCH! And since I finally got a job offer last week, I said fuckit, and bought it.

It's a lawsuit era MIJ Bradley Rickenfaker 4003 (I think, it's been a while since I owned a bass). Research says that Bradley was the brand for Matsumoku made products commissioned and sold by by Veneman's Music/Music Emporium in Maryland, close to DC.

Here's a few pics of it:

[HNB]

Love it. One of my favorite bass shapes because of Fooly Cooly.

[Embenny]

Amazing. I also have a Rick knockoff. It's totally unmarked and bounced around multiple owners, so there's no way to tell where it came from, but I suspect it's MIJ since it's older than most "Chickenbackers" I've seen.

How does it sound? I love mine. The one thing it's missing is the stereo wiring, so I'm planning on adding that at some point.