Meriken SAB Bass By Samick RD

Meriken SAB Bass by Samick RD

BRAND: Meriken

MODEL:  SAB (335 hollow body bass)

REFERENCE: Meriken SAB Bass by Samick RD

SERIAL NUMBER: None

YEAR: 90s-2010s

COLOR: Cherry

RIGHT / LEFT: Right

STRINGS: 45-105

HEADSTOCK: Std SAB

BODY: Laminated NATO with central maple block

NECK: Nato

HEADSTOCK: Open Book

FRETBOARD: Rosewood

PICKGUARD: BK

FRETS: 21

SCALE: 34 ”

INLAYS: WH dots

BRIDGE:  Individually adjustable

PICKUPS:  1 x EB-style single coil pickup

ELECTRONICS:   1 volume, 1 tone

SWITCH:  No

HARDWARE: Chrome

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Korea 

SAMICK GUITARS

The Japanese market is unique in that Gibson and Fender’s trademark copyrights do not apply there. Therefore, other manufacturers can use their designs, as long as they are only sold within Japan.

Samick made a play for this market starting in the mid 1980s, even going so far as to create brands just for the Japanese market (Meriken, Hot Licks and Nashville), but found it difficult to compete with well-established domestic Japanese brands. By 1991, they began dwindling down their Japanese Market-specific lineup and by 1996 had condensed to a single international lineup.

Dating Japanese market models can be very difficult because most did not include serial numbers at all. For examples using a 3-way box switch, a production date may be ink-stamped on the side of the switch. Only by 1992 did they finally start including serial numbers, following their standard Serial Number format.