The Bartell/Hohner Fretless Bass

The Hohner fretless bass pictured here (probably non-original knobs) was built by Bartell, Inc of Riverside, Ca in the late 1960's. The Bartell company was formed by former Rickenbacker, Magnatone, and National employee Paul Barth (engineer) and Ted Peckles (owner and company president, shown in the pic below) in the mid 1960s after Barth returned from Magnatone´s facilities on the East Coast. Bartells were produced from 1964 to 1969, and Peckles estimates that around 2,000 instruments were produced. The Bartell company also built instruments for rebranding for Hohner and St. George. This was Paul's second guitarmaking venture, with the first being Barth guitars in the mid to late 1950's.

All of the Hohner-branded basses I've seen so far are identical to this one with only the color differing. Probably a good 90% of them seem to be black but I have seen a few natural finish and even 1 or 2 sunburst ones. All featured a plain black vinyl pad on the back.

I've recently acquired a fretted version in green which appears to be an actual Bartell bass and not a Hohner model. Here are some pics. You can click on any pic to see a larger version.

Here's a pic of the Hohner next to a Mosrite Black Widow. If I had a Japanese-made Black Widow, you could see even more similarities.