1960s Musima 1657B Hollowbody Electric Bass Guitar

This thing stinks of cool. It's lightweight, looks like the child of a Hofner Club and Gibson EB-2, sports J-Bass-ish single coil pickups, has a cozy medium scale length, and both plays and sounds excellent.

It was made in East Germany and, frankly, reminds me mostly of Hofner and Framus builds, though to be honest the quality level is essentially the same as Hofner products from the time. It does have a bolt-on neck with a two-bolt system and the bolts themselves run into threaded inserts for a good, secure fit.

Neat details in the hardware like the quirky tuners, scalloped edges of the tailpiece, and retro bridge give it a set-apart aesthetic that's different from other makes.

Its wiring is simple -- just two volume controls, one for each pickup. Annoyingly, they were installed backwards from the factory, so there was some fishing-around to do to get the control assembly out and rewire it "correctly" -- but at the same time I added a ground to the tailpiece that was missing so that was a win as well.

My guy Ancel did the level/dress of the frets and the setup and I did the other work.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, minor wiring corrections, new strings, and setup.

Body wood: ply spruce top, ply maple back and sides

Bridge: rosewood adjustable, archtop-style

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: maple

Pickups: 2x original single coils

Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 95w-39w extra lights

Neck shape: medium C/D

Board radius: 16"

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-wide

Scale length: 31 1/2"

Nut width: 1 5/8"

Body width: 16 1/8"

Body depth: 1 7/8"

Weight: 6 lbs 2 oz

Condition notes: it's all original and, while there are plenty of small nicks, dings, scuffs, and scratches throughout the finish, it's in rather good shape. The knobs read "tone" and "volume" on the top (which was confusing as they're both volume knobs) so I painted them black on the top. I added a ground for the tailpiece as well.

It comes with: no case, sorry!