From the auction:
Here’s a rare Hohner fretless bass from the sixties. It’s in very good or better condition, completely original, and plays and sounds great! It was made by Bartell of California, a small guitar company owned and operated by guitar innovator Paul Barth during the sixties. This bass was hand-made at Barth’s shop in Riverside, CA and is similar to the Acoustic Black Widow bass, also made by Bartell. It has had a professional set up, and is gig ready
The Hohner fretless bass was the first commercially available fretless bass guitar, hitting the market in 1965. It predates the Ampeg AUB1 fretless by a year, and predates the Fender fretless bass by 4 or 5 years. This instrument has a full 34″ playing scale, features two single coil pickups, and is very light, weighing around 7 pounds. It features hollow body construction and a unique cantilevered bolt-on neck system that allows the neck angle to be changed in seconds by turning a tilt adjustment screw. It’s a really great instrument!
The hollow body top and sides are carved from solid spruce with a center chamber for the extra long neck shaft which extends below the bridge pickup. The hollow body has internal braces/chambers and is capped by a flat back panel. The neck shaft is a single piece of maple, and appears to have a resin or epoxy coated maple cap fingerboard (perhaps Jaco took this idea from Hohner when he put epoxy resin on the fingerboard of his famous de-fretted Jazz bass) . The neck tilt is controlled by a single screw located below the bridge pickup which pulls up or lowers the end of the neck shaft like a lever, thus changing the neck tilt angle in relation to the body. It’s super easy to dial in the playing action.
The finish is original and appears to be a very thin polyurethane type, similar to the thin finish used by Rickenbacker in the sixties. There is no finish checking or cracks, and the finish has aged to a warm amber hue. Inside the F hole is the original label that reads: Mfg. by Bartell of California — Riverside, Calif. Serial No. 1083.
Condition wise this bass has seen very light use and has a few small scratches and tiny dings on the body, and light cosmetic wear on the fingerboard underneath the strings. There’s also a tiny strip of the black resin finish that’s worn on the G string edge of the fingerboard between the 2nd and 5th fret positions. This bass/model has partial fret lines, and is the first manufactured fretless bass to employ fret lines as a feature. There are also small dot position markers on the side of the neck and it’s easy to play.
The neck itself is in great condition with no wear on the back of the neck, and it’s really nice to play. It’s currently set up with vintage flatwound strings and very low playing action, and has great fretless growl and lots of sustain. While the truss rod cover is missing, the truss rod nut is in excellent condition (no wear from being turned) and the neck is almost perfectly flat and straight. The stock tuners are early German-made Schaller bass tuning machines. The neck is quite thin and very close to the profile of a sixties Rickenbacker 4001 bass neck. The fingerboard width is 1 11/16″ (42.86 mm) at the nut, and 2 1/16″ (52.39 mm) at the end of the fingerboard.
The pickups and controls work great, are even in volume, and have really nice tone range, somewhat similar to the tone range of a vintage Jazz Bass. The potentiometers (which date to 1969) work perfectly with no scratchiness. Same for the toggle switch pickup selector. The pickups are single coil and they have good output. Tone-wise and construction-wise, they remind me of the single coil Rickenbacker 4001 pickup. This is not surprising as Paul Barth is one of the inventors of the original Rickenbacker lap steel guitar pickup in the 1930’s, and worked at Rickenbacker until the late fifties. Height of the pickup pole piece screws can be adjusted.
The back of the body is covered by an upholstered scratch guard pad that screws onto the back. The inside of the pad is covered in metallic foil that serves as shielding for the electronics. Several screws that attach the pad are missing, but most are present and the pad is firmly mounted in place. One of the pics shows the pad removed so you can see the back of the bass and control cavity.
Please note, some pics have reflections that may look like dings (they’re not) and other pictures make the color look uneven (the color is perfectly even). Also the color is “natural”, ie a clear finish over maple/spruce, and it looks slightly amber from age, but does not have much of the red hue that appears in some of the pictures. If you want to see more detail, I can send high quality detailed pictures.
The bass comes with a plush lined chipboard case that I believe is original. The case is in fair condition as some hinges are broken and it has a makeshift handle, but the case is adequate for protecting and transporting the bass.
