This is a great bass for certain jobs. I bought it in 1975 as my first bass and have never played other basses for long - it's currently my only bass. I've played in blues, soul/stax, acid jazz, rock & pop covers and originals bands with it. For blues, which I now play, it is absolutely the nuts, when I played jazz stuff it was probably only 70% appropriate, but you make up the other 30% with your hands anyway.

It had one previous owner, who by all accounts had a big belt buckle and a large wedding ring, as there's total finish loss on the back and the edges of the neck. I suspect he only played up to the 7th fret from the damage there! Since I've had it I've played a load of gigs and the bass has tons and tons of little dings and a sad fag burn on the headstock where a song went on for longer than I expected! The bridge is 3mm away from where it should be resulting in the E being right by the edge of the fingerboard and the other strings across accordingly. It's not unplayable because of this, and otherwise there's nothing wrong with it at all. The machine heads are a little stiff, and all the metal work is tarnished.

The acoustic sound of the bass is very, very, very good and consistent. I must have got lucky and ended up with one of the decent pieces of wood amongst the 'random' job-lots they used in the 70s at Fender. The electric sound is also lovely and warm, as good as a '68 I A/Bed once - very rare for a 70s P. E string output is way higher than the others but I've unevenly jacked up the pickups and it's now even, luckily with no magnetic capture effects on the G. The neck is thick, as P bass necks usually are, but it is rock solid and has never shown any signs of warping.

There you have it - I was lucky and landed a good one rather than one of the many poor efforts they churned out back then. I can strongly recommend a 70s P for any rootsy music, esp with Roto Jazz 77 flats on, but always always always play the exact one first to check it's not a doggie !

Construction	85%
(other than the bridge thing)
Playability	80%
Appearance	100%
(if you like the 'player' look)
Sound	100%
Value	100%
for me, 70 if you buy one today
Overall	95%