Double Bass Worth It?

[-Shaun-]

Hey everyone,

I'm interested in making the jump from electric bass to double bass. I've found one listed online. Unfortunately, the seller has no idea about it, and there's no information on the bass. The seller's daughter owned it, but she no longer lives in the country. They don't seem to know anything about the maker, year of production, or anything else. It's not exactly local. A couple of hours from here. However, they did say that they would accept any fair offer, as long as nobody has bid on it just yet. So, I was thinking of possibly making them an offer based on responses I get here. It could be well below the start price they listed, as they said that if nobody goes for it, they'll just be giving it away to someone local. A few people have asked questions about the maker, but they can't find anything about it. I was wondering if any of you are able to ascertain anything just based on these (admittedly average) pictures?

I'm, more or less, a beginner to double bass, so I don't necessarily care about getting a really nice bass right off the bat, but I also know that it's not even worth bothering with some really cheap, poorly-built thing. If it's not so bad, and I can get it for a good price, it may be a good beginner bass.

Double Bass

Thanks in advance,
Shaun

 

[Steve Swan]

The bass has factory strings and no setup to speak of, as the bridge is very far out of position. Who knows where the sound post has been placed. Get a local professional player or repair person to help you. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[-Shaun-]

Thanks for the input, Steve. Unfortunately, as it's not really local to me, it could be in the 'too hard' basket. I wouldn't have caught the lack of set-up. Thanks for that.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

It’s an anonymous Chinese carved bass. Could be OK or it could be a money pit that sounds like a cardboard box. I can already see that it needs work.

As a new player, there should be safer alternatives.

 

[-Shaun-]

Thanks. I'm starting to think the same. I'll keep looking.

 

[Wulfensteiner]

If you gots the $$$, tools, the time and the know-how, hell yeah why not?

But these are questions you gotta ask yourself I guess.

 

[Tim de Martino]

As above ^. Offer a grand then read everything you can about setting it up. There's a reason that its in a hard case and not a crappy gig bag, I reckon.

Good luck!

 

[misterbadger]

That's a crappy hard case - one sees them all the time on eBay housing CCBs. No indication of quality of the contents.

 

[robobass]

Still, 1250 NZD is like $870 USD. Seems hard to go wrong.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Au contraire. False economy is almost always a trap. Buy once, cry once.