Since I'm now playing on a wonderful Panormo bass in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, my own bass is hanging around not being played on. And that's a shame, so I have decided to sell it. According to Thomas Martin who has examined the bass it's made by the french maker Gabriel Jaquet (also known as Jaquet-Gand) and it dates around 1870. Here's some background infornation about french basses from the Mirecourt area.

I bought the bass back in 1996 from violin maker Jochen Bien in Hamburg and have been playing on it with great joy in more than 10 years. It has a very good buzzy wooden sound quality and it's very easy to play. The violin form can though make it necessary to not have too short arms when you're up in the high register. It also sounds fantastic with solo strings (won my audition in GSO with this bass).

Price
26 000 EUR / ≈193 500 DKK / ≈250 000 SEK

Extension
American violin maker Patrick McCarthy mounted one of his state-of-the-art extensions back in 1999 and it has worked perfectly ever since. It's so great to be able to play the low register notes (down to contra-C) and have the great sound and ease of playing a great 4-stringer. The capos are individually adjustable so that the extension notes can always be in perfect tune.

Condition
The bass is in perfect playing condition - ready to play. I had it opened last spring to put in a new more flexible bass bar, and we did some patching on the inside (see inside pictures). So it is now in top condition. Old cracks were patched by Jochen Bien back in 1995 and not one of them has opened so I'm confident that the bass has settled in a natural way.

Try it!
The bass is at the moment in Holland with Rene Zaal on comission. You're welcome to try it in his shop. Please make an appointment to Mr René Zaal

Pictures:















Before patching:

After patching: