von Talkbass:
"when i had my shop in La Habra (1985-1999) a customer came in with a slab body P bass that had a three digit serial number stamped on the bridge plate. its serial number was 001!
i don't know if that meant it was the actual first one, but it very well may have been. the customer told me that his father worked at fender when the first started building guitars and amps on harbor blvd and commonwealth in fullerton, CA.
unfortunately, his father had all of the hardware (pickup covers, machine heads, bridge & neck plate) re-plated with copper plating. the neck had been amateurly shaved way too thin, and the body reshaped, sawed in half and had a walnut stringer running down the middle of it. i told him that the bass was way past any sort of 'restoration', so i just restrung it and adjusted it for him, and after that it still didn't play very well. i actually wanted to buy the bridge from him since i'd heard that they never had three digit serial numbers, but this one did, and it wasn't 'restamped', just replated. all of the original parts were there, but it was really sad to see #1 end up this way."
[**/]
![[¦)]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 "Nymi [¦)]")
