I sold a ’73 Peugeot bike yesterday so I set off today to our big flea market in Roseville, California, with greenbacks burning holes in my wallet.

Sure enough, my Afghanistan music stand man had ‘seen me coming’ so I needed to buy this mystery Pearl River 4-string bass from him for $65 usd.

Machine heads are sloppy so I need to lube and tighten them. Or replace.
So, next I’ll strip it down and clean it up. Then see if I can carve an adequate nut for it. [Or not.]

I’d never heard of Pearl River and, sure enough, online search for it turned up very little and no image match.

Below is before cleaning.

Frets and fretboard need cleaning and lemon oiling but seems straight and smooth.

I felt glad I’d bargained him down $5 because walking back to the car I noticed the nut was MIA. Oh, well, I’ve got lots of countertop Corian material so I’ll carve one up out of it. [Ordered a proper bone nut online, $7.]

Alex let’s me return basses with major defects like bad pickups or frozen neck torsion nuts.

So I took pics of it still filthy, then plugged it in and tapped the pole pieces- good loud pops so the pups work.

I shot a blast of Remington gun oil on the torsion rod nut and it turns freely. It cleaned up pretty nicely with damp soapy cotton balls after I threw away the strings.

I just ordered this P-bass size (1 & 5/8 inch length) bone nut from Sweetwater, same price, free shipping, cheap enough.

I love the sunburst ‘tobacco burst’ or whatever; the tiny truncated ‘amoeba’ headstock; and the nice sized slabby body. I’ve never owned a traditional burst color bass before.

It looks good and different from anything else. I’d like it to play good too, or as well as I can play to be such an elderly student hack. But ain’t it the life?

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