Back to Basics

This is my Profile Silhouette fretless bass. It's a very accurate copy of an early (1960) Fender Precision Bass, made in Japan. Basically, what happened is that Fender had new owners, the quality control on their very expensive instruments slipped, and Japanese musical instrument manufacturers realised there was a gap in the market for good quality, inexpensive instruments.

The Profile Silhouette range of instruments were a special order for an Australian distributor, made just before a series of lawsuits kicked in. There is some discussion online about who made the the Profile instruments, but I'm under the impression that two years later Fender ordered a load of them and labelled them as "Fender Squier Vintage Reissue". The swamp that is AI suggests a company called Fujigen of Matsumoto City were the actual manufacturers. It's made of solid wood, with a maple neck, and lighter than the tree planks that Fender were doing at that time.

I'm not posting it to boast, but because I realised today that I have owned it for 40 years. I bought it new from Better Music in Canberra in 1986, and for many years it was my goto bass. It has seen me through thousands of gigs: jazz, pop, folk, rock, pit orchestras, and metal. The only thing that's been changed is the pickguard - it arrived with a plain white, which I swapped for black/white/black.

I'm stunned to think that when I bought it there was no such thing as a 40 year old Fender bass guitar - they were first made in 1951, and by the time I bought my copy an early Fender bass cost more than a normal house. Mine isn't worth that much, it's priceless to me.