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Last updated: 5/21/01.

Jon Casselman is living in Toronto, Canada. He's been playing the bass for 34 years and also owns two other Hagstrom basses. He says the prototype bass is probably one of the most unique basses he has owned.
 
 
 

The Hagstrom Prototype Bass

Hagstrom enjoyed tremendous growth and development during the 1950's and 60's. But during the 1970's there was tremendous competition in the guitar marketplace from manufacturers from all over the world. Especially from Japan.

Hagstrom started to lose their market share during the mid to late 1970's The Japanese were flooding the marketplace with cheaper copies of major American guitar manufacturers. This took its toll on Hagstrom. The Hagstrom company decided to move some of their manufacturing offshore to Japan in 1980. There, small numbers of guitars were built bearing the Hagstrom name. One of these was the Ultra Swede. You can see a picture of one on the pictures page of this site. Sales of these instruments also remained poor.

As 1983 rolled around, Hagstrom received an offer from a major Japanese guitar manufacturer to purchase the Hagstrom name and manufacturing rights. Along with the written offer came 16 new Japanese prototype instruments. These instruments were unlike any other Hagstrom. Although Hagstrom didn't build the instruments, they came bearing the Hagstrom name silkscreened onto the body of each instrument. The designs were new and radical. The idea was to rejuvenate the Hagstrom name with these new instruments. The exact split in number of guitars and basses is unknown. According to a very reliable source the colours were white (as pictured) gray and light blue, the finishes were metallic. These instruments are truly very rare as most people are not aware of their existence, and remember only 16 in total were ever made

The offer from the Japanese was politely declined by the members of the board of Hagstrom. They felt that the quality of the instruments did not meet the companies standards and the designs to radical, so rather than continuing on they chose to wind the company down and cease all manufacturing at the end of 1983.

A few of the prototypes were shipped to Hagstrom's Canadian distributor ARC and were soon forgotten about. There the instruments remained boxed and in storage until ARC closed their doors in the late 1980's. The prototypes were discovered and sold along with the assets of the ARC when it closed.

I discovered the bass in a used guitar shop in Ottawa. I was surfing the site when I saw a description of a Hagstrom bass. The description read "Hagstrom Thunderbird like Bass". I immediately requested a jpeg of the instrument and when it arrive I was shocked at what I saw.
I contacted a number of people who know Hagstrom instruments very well. No one could identify the mysterious Hagstrom bass. Finally I sent the jpeg to the Official Hagstrom web site. Shortly after I received an  e-mail from Ulf Zanders who is the site's webmaster. He told me that he felt he could be of help in getting the answers to my questions. He also told me that he would forward my questions onto Karl-Eric Hagstrom Jr.

Mr Hagstrom has since and on many occasions supplied me with all of the answers to my many questions about the prototype. He has been very helpful and I greatly appreciate his willingness to discuss the history of the instrument.

I have been advised by Mr Hagstrom that there is one of the prototype basses identical to the one pictured here on permanent display in the Hagstrom Museum in Sweden.

Now lets talk about this rare and unusual instrument.

First, notice the spec sheet on the bass [at the bottom of this page]. To look at these specs there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary about the bass. But if you take a good close look at the picture of the bass you will see a few things that are different from most basses.
Let me explain, the first thing is the headstock. It is very small, and the tuners are mounted on the backside of the head (not unusual). But what is unusual is where on the back of the head the tuners are mounted. They are located on the bottom side on the headstock not the topside where most tuners are located. By placing the tuners on the bottomside when you face the headstock, the tuners are completely hidden from view.
Next, the stringing to the tuners is backwards. The tuners are mounted straight four in-line, but the E-string runs to the top tuner (the tuner farthest away). This makes the E-string the longest of the four strings. The E-string is always the shortest string on all other four in-line headstocks. This in turn means that the G-string is the shortest string on the bass.
When tuning each string, it is easy to forget that the location of each tuner is opposite to a traditional four in-line headstock.
The neck has 24 frets on it giving the bass a full three octave range. It plays very easily and is well balanced. The contoured body makes the instrument very comfortable to hold and play. It's well balanced and weights approximately nine pounds. The body looks like a combination of a Gibson Thunderbird bass and a Rickenbacker Combo 800 guitar making it quite unique.

Now that I've told you about some of its ideocintricies and how it plays, the most important part. How does it sound?
The bass uses two passive humbucking pickups. One is very large and is the main pick-up. The other pick-up is mounted in front of the bridge assembly and is smaller in size. They are both very responsive to the vibrations of the strings. The scale of the bass is 34”.

The 34” scale which borders on being extra long allows the strings to ring out. It allows the bass to produce deep accurate low notes and at the same time allows it to also produce tight high notes when playing up the three octave neck.
I am currently using (and will continue to use) Dean Markley Blue Steels roundwound medium-lite gauge strings on the bass. The sound produced by the bass with these strings is incredible. True solid bass with the twang of a grand piano. The instrument is very flexible and excels when played aggressively.

Finally the bridge assembly is adjustable nine ways. It's very accurate and easy to tweak with minor adjustments when necessary.
I would highly recommend this bass to anyone wanting an outstanding progressive instrument. Should you ever have the opportunity to buy one, do it!

I am happy to answer any questions that anyone might have of the bass. Please feel free to contact me at my home e-mail address of: casselman@sympatico.ca
 

SPECIFICATIONS
 

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