The Yairi name is well respected in Japanese luthiery, although you may have seen Yairi guitars variously badged with the names S. Yairi, H. Yairi, and K. Yairi. Basically what we are dealing with here is a family of luthiers: S. (Sadao) Yairi who built guitars in the 1960s and 1970s, his son H. (Hiroshi) Yairi and nephew K. (Kazuo) Yairi. To confuse matters further, Yairi guitars have been marketed under several other brand names including Yairi & Sons, Kohno, Shelly, and Wilson. Today, the K. Yairi factory also produce a line of top-level guitars for Alvarez.
This bass is currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1,794.99.
G L Wilson
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I agree it's not very elegant but is it original?Unless you need to change something inside the body, I don't see the interest of such an access as long as the preamp and its battery are usually in the same clipped on box on the side of the instrument.The price is quite high anyway...
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the access panel is inelegant and probably quite redundant.
DeleteALSO... it's hard to tell with 100% certainty from the photos, but it does appear to be a short-scale bass.
Deleteit's a 32" scale length per the description in the listing. :)
DeleteD'Oh! I missed that.
DeleteExcellent form! This photograph reminds me of the forgotten "Holly Leaf shape" instruments, including: citole in the medieval, various exotic lutes around the world, Wappen guitars in Germany, and Venetian style guitars & mandolins (probably) by Kay Kraft. And these exotic instruments have been memorized by luthiers for long time, and sometimes may be revived as a new instrument -- I think it is miracle!
ReplyDeleteThe K. Yairi YB-13 gives us a completely different take on the electro-acoustic bass guitar, with more than a nod to the violin bass design of ... iacousticbassguitar.blogspot.com
ReplyDelete