1970s vintage British-built Ned Callan bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Peter Cook developed the Ned Callan range in the 1970s, guitars being initially handcrafted by Cook himself from his small workshop in London's Notting Hill, and later for Shaftesbury with Shergold Guitars being commisioned to make Ned Callan guitars as designed by Peter. Shergold produced both the "Cody" and "Hombre" models under this arrangement and these odd-looking guitars earned themselves the nickname "Nobbly Neds".

This Ned Callan bass is, I'm guessing because of the lack of the Shaftesbury name on the headstock, one of Peter Cook's earlier hand-built instruments, which seems to take its cues from the early Gibson EB-0 designs.

This rare piece of British guitar-making history is currently being auctioned on eBay UK with a starting bid of £150 (and with no bids currently as I type this), although I would warn prospective buyers that the lacquer is very cracked which could present the buyer with a dilemma: to leave it as it is so that it is as original as possible, or to refinish it?

Peter Cook is still in the guitar business, but these days he sells them via Peter Cook's Guitar World rather than making them himself.

As as aside, the Shaftesbury name was also used by Rosetti Music as a brandname on various imported guitars from Japan and Korea.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Shaftesbury shortscale bass, rough copy of a Fender

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Ahhhh... now this one brings back some memories. It's a shortscale Shaftesbury bass, roughly modelled on the original slab-bodied Fender Precision/Fender Telecaster bass, and I guess it's from the mid 1970s.

I remember back in the early 1980s when I was first getting into starting bands with my mates and doing a spot of home recording on the then-new Fostex X15 multitrack cassette recorder; one day a couple of my friends came round wanting to record a demo. They brought a couple of cheap guitars with them. I don't remember what the six string was, but the bass was one of these. It was bad. I remember thinking it how dreadful it was. It was boomy, as you'd expect from a short-scale bass but I've played many that were streets ahead of this. I don't think the flat wound strings helped (I've never liked them and never will). I can't explain exactly what was wrong with it, just that it felt bad and it played bad. It was a cheap and nasty bass and performed accordingly.

This one on eBay UK has a starting price of £199. That is what I'd call seriously optimistic. Don't be fooled by the fact that this was "Made in Italy". It's not one of their finer moments.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!