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I have had many over the decades. THe bridge has little pieces of fret wire as saddles, and "fret lines" cut. I cannot confirm of course wether or not it is a replacement, but you could, with this bridge, pull the fret/saddles and reverse them in the slots to play it left or right. Wondering if it was marred or scratched. My 68 was stolen from me in 1985. I got it back by chance 100 miles away 10 years later. After playing it for a week, I realized that it had been badly abused and there was a split in the body at the binding, along with numorous dings, belt scratches and a warp in the neck that I could not truss out. I ended up selling it of as a parts guitar </3Lord Reith wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:18 pm Btw the bridge has been changed because a right hander was playing it. You can't just change the strings, you have to change the bridge as well. Otherwise the intonation would be shot to pieces.
Yes I'm of the opinion that this might be the original bridge, but has been moved for reasons unknown. Oddly the strings are arranged for a right handed player, but the "saddles" on the bridge are arranged for a leftie. But the bridge has also been moved, which tells us it might have come loose (anyone know how it was attached?). In that case, someone has not used the opportunity to simply replace the bridge with a right hand orientation but had the original leftie bridge re-attached in a different spot. This implies that either (1) they knew who it belonged to and its significance and therefore did not want to discard the old bridge or (2) they were a completely clueless person who knew nothing about basses. It would have sounded completely horrible with a left hand bridge and right hand stringing.monkeesfan1965 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:34 pmTHe bridge has little pieces of fret wire as saddles, and "fret lines" cut.
EDIT- I believe I see where the fret wire saddles WERE indeed reversed... It "may" still be the original bridge!
Full story is over at guitarplayer but here is the juicy bit:Looking at the close up below this instrument seems in remarkably good condition, but I wonder if Paul will choose to reverse the rather unnattractive changes made to it in the 1960s to return it to its original 1961 state? That would involve removing the sunburst paintjob... tricky but not impossible. Of course the nobs and bezel could easily be changed.Given his line of work, Horne knew many of those musicians. And when the bass went missing, he had a strong idea who took it. “Their first thought was that it was a chap named Dik Mik,” Jones says. Michael Davies — a.k.a. Dik Mik — was a keyboardist and electronics manipulator who was among the many musicians in Hawkwind, guitarist Dave Brock’s infamous space-rock group, which in one of its early 1970s incarnations also included Dik Mik’s pal, future Motörhead bassist Lemmy Kilmister. “Ian Horne thought Dik might have stolen the bass because he lived nearby and he knew Ian worked for McCartney. They got a wrench and tried to force Dik to tell them where the bass was. We know now that Dik wasn’t involved.”
Yes he was, see my post:Lord Reith wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:06 am I'm also pretty sure Paul must have shed a tear or two when he held this again. I mean, this is the bass that played all those Cavern gigs, that's on the first two albums and all those radio shows from 1963. It's loss must have been an ache at the very core of his being.