S.D. Curlee Liberty Bell bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

To me, the name S.D. Curlee evokes three piece through-necks, DiMarzios, Badass bridges and wood finishes like my Mum's coffee table. This Curlee bass from 1976 does not disappoint. I remember seeing the ads for them at the time and, although they've never really appealed to me, I never forgot them. This is the kind of guitar I associated with big, hairy armed, denim clad rockers who, for some reason, wore midriff revealing girly tops and hairstyles like Roger Daltrey or Jimmy Page. Probably because that's the kinds of band I used to see a lot at that time, Strider, Strife, Stray, Savoy Brown, Bob Story, lots of bands whose names began with "S" (star?), and Rory Gallagher, The Enid, Caravan, Colloseum II... Yes, I was weird. Anyway, what I mean to say is, these are men's guitars, designed for hard rocking, tough talking, shit kicking, mean, SOBs. Sorry, came over all American then. Must be the Curlee effect.


This odd shaped bass is a little out there but not all that over the top really. It's supposed to be in the shape of the Liberty Bell. Like the Airline Map is supposed to be in the (art deco styled) shape of the US of A.

The seller says:

Made in the famous Matsumoku guitar factory. Amazing vintage Bass; all original electronics and pickups--works great, and have not been modified. Controls are volume/tone/tone and a pickup selector switch. Has 2 made in USA DiMarzio split coil pickups, and even still has the Dimarzio sticker on the back! Minimal fretwear, and the fret edges are nice and smooth. Brass nut. 32" scale with 1 5/8 inch nut. Weighs approximately 8.5 pounds. This bass sounds AWESOME! Has a huge tone, and can really thump!

And a couple of paragraphs from the S.D. Curlee website

Enter Denny Rauen. He was a young guy working for a construction company that ran the building SD Curlee was in, a player and ceramic artist with a natural ability for how things work. The workshop was battling a spindle sander they couldn't get working... "If I fix that sander, will you hire me?" He got it working in about 5 minutes, was hired, and within a year and a half he was in charge of the workshop. Denny tweaked the basic Dritz design, retooled everything, designed more jigs and systems and got it into smoother production. 

He designed the "Liberty" bass in 1976 to get some attention. (That's the Curlee bass that looks like an old telephone. Keep in mind this was the '70s and a bass shaped like a melting liberty bell wasn't all that far out.) They took some hand made versions to a NAMM show and... surprise, there was Hondo with dozens of them from a Japanese factory. Randy Curlee had licensed the design to Hondo. The flipside of this, though, is he was one of the (if not the) first to license and purchase overseas copies of a company's own designs for a lower line - a business model now followed by most big guitar companies and many independents.

I don't know if that corroborates the sellers claim of it being Matsumoku made or not. I couldn't find any reference to Hondo having guitars made by them. I'm sure someone out there knows. US made SD Curlees seem to have carved logos whereas this has a decal. so might mean something. I wonder if the Hondo made guitars were branded Hondo or S.D. Curlee...

David in sweaty Barcelona

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From Unknown — Friday 5 July 2013 — Add Comment — 70s guitars, American guitars, bass, Japanese guitar, Matsumoku, SD Curlee, vintage guitars