Kay Unknown Bass

A guy brought this guitar into the store and all I could find out was that it was a Kay. The only marking on the bass is the "K" insignia which is sort of "branded" to the head. I assume that it was made in Chicago. It is a thin hollowbody bass with a small "S" shaped cut out on the lower left of the body, with two small holes on each end of the "S" (looking at the face of the guitar in the upright position). There are no markings visible in this cutout. There is only one large crome pick-up. Unlike other vintage pick-up's I have seen, this one was rather tall, and recktangular shaped. Only one tone and one volume control exist; they are small knobs - like on 1940's era radios. I am not sure on the kind of woods used, although the fretboard is rosewood. It has four strings. The neck is narrow and thin, short scale and bolt on. Although there is no bolt plate on the back. It is not a very finished attachment. Tuners are plastic-like with open gears. All tuners on the left side. The bridge mounts to the bottom of the body with tubular-like metal hardware.

Unfortunately none of the electronics are in working order.

The strings are set high off the fretboard with no visible adjustment.
The bass has not been well taken care of at all. Lots of scratches, finish worn off, and it looks as though it has been wet before. The neck is very straight and solid, as does the body appear to be. The guitar really doesn't look like much at all any more. But the owner wants to know more.

Still plays well.

Not much. But surely vintage. A great challenge awaits the person that chooses to put some time into it.

This is pretty much a straight up bass, nothing special to it. Kinda looks like a Fender P-Bass, but it's way crappier. The only knobs are tone and volume. The tone knob provides for some variation in the sound, but not too much.

Like I said, the tone knob doesn't give too much, but it gives some. Removing the treble would give it a real low quality sound, right? Well, not really. And removing the treble makes it sound like shit. But the real problem with this bass are the notes themselves. The A note on the E-string (fifth fret) is the sharpest A I've ever heard in my life. You can't play it with anything without being out-of-tune like hell. Each string octave is sharp, and actually most notes after the fifth fret on each string are sharp. I've tried everything to alleviate the problem but nothing seems to work. Apparently the deaf society of America made this bass.

The action needed a little tweaking (I found myself pressing a little harder than necessary to hit a note). The bass itself is extremely light. I've never held a bass or a guitar that light in my life. That's a plus, I suppose. But only a marginal one. For the most part, the setup is okay.

The bass seems pretty reliable, it hasn't given me any technical troubles and it hasn't broken or anything. But it's so damn out of tune!!

I've never dealt with Kay. Hell, I had never even heard of Kay before I got the damn thing.

This bass absolutely sucks. Do not buy it. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't bought it. The only reason I did was because I used to have to bass and I missed being able to play one when I wanted to, and it was only a hundred dollars. I didn't really check out the tuning problem, usually guitars and basses in stores are pretty royally out of tune anyway. So I recommend that if you plan on buying, or even looking at an instrument, bring along your tuner, maybe even your amp, and test the hell out of it. You don't want a piece of crap!