I picked this up in 2008. It’s not labeled (there’s usually a paper label in one of the F-holes or a decal on the headstock) but it’s unmistakably made by Bartell. The unusual green finish appears to be original as it’s similar to the black finish on my Hohner fretless bass and the wear on the finish, especially on the neck, is consistent with it’s age and usage. The tongue of the neck has “GREEN” written on it in large letters so this is possibly a custom order. There is no evidence of it ever having a headstock decal. To see larger pics, click on the thumbnail and you’ll be taken to my Photobucket album.
More info from Bartell employee Doug Donaghue after the thumbs.
Former Bartell employee Doug Donaghue had this to say about Fretted Bartell Bass #91191:
“The fretted bass you show .. is -definitely- a Bartell built bass. In fact, it may have been one of the first ones that Ted and Paul built. The first ones were finished by Paul himself and green was one of his favorite finish colors. (My Underwood is also finished in the same green, but a much lighter shade so that the wood grain shows through better) And I’d also recognize Teds’ wiring (and his use of masking tape instead of black electrical tape on the pickup leads ) anywhere. I used to tell him, “Ted, you wire guitars like my girlfriend fucks when she’s drunk. You’re sloppy as hell.” I never could convince him that the linear taper pots were fine for the tone controls, but that the volume controls really should have a right-hand audio taper. That’s the reason that it’s so difficult to control the volume at lower levels on that bass. OTOH…. Who ever plays a bass at anything except full volume? My younger brother (who was a bass player and had a 500 Watt dual Sun stack) used to say, “You don’t turn it up until the speakers distort. You turn it up until your -ears- distort.” Those knobs on the controls are also the originals. We’d thought about using a smooth, aluminum knob (similar to those used on the Mosrites) but they cost a fortune so we went with the less expensive plastic. We wanted to find some that didn’t have the pointer line on the skirt of the knob (since there’s obviously nothing on the body of the instrument for it to ‘point’ at), but we never could find any. It also looks as if most of the chrome has worn off of the brass pickup covers. I don’t remember where the serial numbers on any of those guitars began, but it might well have been at 91190. (Or even 91191.) Neither Ted nor Paul were ever real good about such things “