'unidentified' altered Bass?

Never seen it before . Only a few (cellphone) photo's and not very good quality. Pity we will never know now what it looked like before the applied changes and the changed look!
'The bridge, HEADSTOCK, pickguard and jack potentiometers were replaced in 2004'
How, what?


If this was a copy of an existing American model I cannot think of any. The altered look?

70's Gibson 'The Ripper' sort of?

Yep, Ripper, Grabber sort of thing

~ another example of someone thinking they can do better than stock. I'll never understand it!

Should have checked better with the Aria Pro II models...
How could I have missed that one from the (page 4) '77 Dealer Slick at Matsumoku.org catalogue section? (hotlinking forbidden) They were produced only during 1977-1978 and came in natural, sunburst or brown versions.

I bumped into this listing of an Aria Bass Aria Pro II PE-200 SB Bass Guitar and found another, older, listing of which the pics are unfortunately gone for I would have loved to see it with original case!
Final verdict: Most probably a Matsumoku Ripper copy with a Westone badge and he definitely must have changed out the original tailpiece or lost the ashtray.

This is how you increase the value of a Westone.
Stick an Aria badge on it.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Aria-Pro-II-PE-200-SB-Bass-Guitar-Made-in-Japan-Better-GRAB-this-one-/271199119887?pt=Guitar&hash=item3f24ba2a0f#ht_150wt_719

Westbone wrote:This is how you increase the value of a Westone.
Stick an Aria badge on it.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Aria-Pro-II-PE-200-SB-Bass-Guitar-Made-in-Japan-Better-GRAB-this-one-/271199119887?pt=Guitar&hash=item3f24ba2a0f#ht_150wt_719

Those Aria's are probably rather obscure and the price is much more than I would pay for it, It didn't sell yet though Damian and I doubt it will for this price! The other one that did sell (with ohc!) sold for a little over 500 USD. Some people pay for obscurity rather than quality hence the often uttered 'RARE' in auctions, or 'pre-lawsuit' and such which in itself says nothing about build quality or preservation. Anyway, I found the Aria Pro II LB-650 had a predecessor in the Aria Pro II PE-200 . Seems yokochou is still updating pages 1978 and 1979 added!

'Rare' and 'prelawsuit' are often overused words.

Used to suck in potential buyers.

Half of these 'rare' guitars were crap at the time and didn't sell then.

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Or polish a turd.