NBD: El Degas PBass

[devnulljp]

I just found this in my hall closet (while looking for an ironing board … goes to show how much I use one of those).
After a lot of confusion, turns out it wasn’t a drunk buy on reverb. Guitarist in my old band gave it to my drummer to give to me, and he decided it would be funny to sneak it into the cupboard without telling anyone. This was months ago.

So, as far as I can tell, 1980s (?), MIJ (it has the neck plate, green chicklet cap), El Degas. Relatively common in Canada. Maple neck. No idea about body. Seems no-one knows for sure where they were made right? Mother of toilet seat logo with acute over the é.
Sure looks like a DiMarzio. Has a sticker on the bottom but covered in foam block so all I can see if PA…A… (Patent Applied for?). Cant get the foam off without destroying the sticker. Magnets are epoxied in to the shell.

That's a stock (?) series / parallel switch?

Switch and pots are crusty and noisy. I’m def going to replace all the electronics – not sure if I’ll keep a switch in there or not. Will see what’s in my stash. It’s going to need new tuners, those old ones are rubbish

Neck is like a banana, so that’s first to try to fix. Truss rod turns, so we’ll see if that helps.
I like the LPB-ish colour, and matching headstock is a bonus.

Anyone have any other info? The DiMarzio/series/parallel switch models are early/mid-80s MIJ right?

[Barry]

What a nice surprise on ironing day! Great colour too.

I can't help much with the dating and switch functions, but the forum owner, Charles, should be able to once he checks in. My guess is that you're correct in dating it to the early 80's.

As far as the electronics are concerned, I would try a liberal application of electronic cleaner into the pots and yank it like a monkey in a mango tree before I go to the effort of replacing everything. Most of the time that's all it takes to clean out the oxidation on the wipers, and Bob's yer uncle, you're back in business for little or no cost.

You could try some gentle heat from a hair dryer to soften the glue on the foam blocks, that should do it. I rather suspect that there won't be too much useful info there other than the "Patent Applied For" which you already have guessed at. Anything else would be a bonus though.

Congrats, it should work out to be a nice little player.

[charles]

I'm not too sure of the era on these. It has the "deluxe" headstock logo you see on the slightly higher end models that I normally attribute to the 70s, but Barry is correct that it could be anywhere from the 70s to early 80s. However this is, to my knowledge, not a later MIK model we normally attribute to the 80s era – the headstock logo changed on those to a more rounded style.

[charles]

You do see the Dimarzios with mini toggles throughout the 70s models. Someone once posited that it was a dealer upsell option to add that coil split to models with Dimarzios but I have zero way of verifying it.