Romania, 1972

[Thomas Erickson]

Anybody familiar with Romanian basses of this vintage?

Here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/49781788@N03/sets/72157624855817901/) is a bass I came across recently and am considering fixing up. Overall it is in pretty good condition; no cracks in the plates (those are just shadows in the flash-photo of the top). The top seems thick, bassbar is a little outboard, and the Eb neck is like a club; also, the pegbox is enormous. I wonder if the bass wasn't made to be a five string... seems kind of small for it, but with a 41.25" stop, maybe I'll convert it. There's no deformation of the top at all and it's nice tight grain wood.

Main problems are a dovetail neck joint with little overstand and braces that were fitted snug up to the ribs and are now pushing everything apart. :mad:

Sounds nice though, even as it needs setup work; rich, clear tone that projects even if not a ton of it. Definitely not a boomer.

Oh and the back is nice tight-flamed maple under that weird liver colored varnish.

[Pino Cazzaniga]

Thomas,
This is an instrument from Reghin, a small town in Romania.
Hora factory still produces basses on that same design, almost identical but with a thick gloss of (nitro?) varnish. They make them solid or ply or hibrid too.
I saw some of their instruments since the early '90, and a couple were old at that time.
Not a good market value, but musicians are usually happy with them.
The dovetail Joint often get loose, and the back bracing is usually pretty thick.
The instrument I saw were vinilic glued, so sometimes with warped necks.

[Thomas Erickson]

Interesting, thanks for posting that.

I think this bass may have come to the US in the white and had some things done to it when new; the varnish seems to be spirit over an oil base of some sort, which is where that gross color is, and it seems to be assembled with hide glue with the exception of the bass bar and a few repaired seams which have some white glue in them. No warped neck on this one - the maple is plain, but is one of the heaviest, thickest necks I've seen around.

Overall I kind of like the bass, which is the only reason I'm considering doing anything with it, since clearly it isn't worth much... :D

I'm thinking about what to do with the neck and wondering if I should bother resetting the dovetail or just convert it to a proper mortise. If it were coming apart that would make the choice more obvious, but as it is, the neck seems quite solid. :rolleyes: