Thought this was interesting...only seen one other "vintage" short scale bass in the flesh...and I've owned that one for 20+yrs!
Found this baby at a fellow junkie's house, he was tired of it, so I get have some fun. AFAIK it's almost all original, just missing the finger rest from the pickguard and the nut was changed recently.
There's precious little info on the "President" brand. So little, on the first page of google searches - a GFSA thread stands out!
My educated guess is that it was made under the Teisco brand, re-badged as President.
Some searching of Teisco produced basses turns up :
Pickup(s) on their short scale basses (Teisco/Beltone/Kimberly/Melodier/Kingston/Lero) that are identical to what is in this one. Apparently a copy of a Hofner two coil design...in a single coil variant.
Pickup & Paint on a "Global" is identical to the President. Same for the bridge cover & screws. Neck, headstock and binding look pretty similar too
And finally, the tuners are identical to the ones on the Yahama Flying Samurai bass.
First job, get everything working 100%.
Tuners desperately needed a refurb, felt rather gritty, a tad vague and one or two keys are a little bent, but they straightened out easily enough. A degrease, some fresh lube and they're good for another 40+yrs!
The pup works (6.5k) but was sounding a bit sick - but checking the wiring reveals a bit of a hack, both pot operating as volume's, with a cap in the oddest place. Reckon that wiring it up as a vol/tone should sort it out...I have a plan B in case it doesn't 8)
Neck is solid, some fret wear, but these frets were low from the factory. The truss adjusts fine too. Binding on the neck feels like deluxe touch, though it is a bit wavy on the one side of the neck as it approaches the zero fret (Yes, it has a zero fret!). Fingerboard is a pretty piece of rosewood, interestingly neck looks like mahogany instead of maple.
Body is laminated plywood, many, many layers of it - but reasonably light and feels solid. Guitars of this era where apparently mahogany ply - not sure about that. Paint was touched up before I got it. Wish they hadn't, I reckon the roadworn look will suit this one, so I'm undo the touch-ups and see what we find. I'm not going to re-finish it - there's much mojo lurking in this one =D.
The bridge is ugly. Like wow. Properly ugly. This definitely reveals this babies budget roots...Two saddle (ack!) on a pressed steel plate. The intonation screws were stripped (and a imperial/british thread) so that was fun to find. Took some convincing at the bolt and nut shop that they had some. I was more convinced than they were, eventually they dug up a stash for me. The saddle height screws look crappy and get in the way of palm muting with the cover off - I would replace with grub screws, but...imperial thread again! Still debating re-tapping the saddle threads for metric.
Tempted to replace the bridge with something else, but the bass is all original - so I'll keep it that way for now. If it becomes a daily player, replacing the bridge would be a good idea.
Unfortunately I've been man down for the past week, so I have made zero progress since last weekend - hoping to have it up and playing by this time next week!
