Fender 40th Anniversary Precision Bass Deluxe Amber (pre-owned)

In 1991 Fender’s Custom Shop marked the Precision Bass turning 40 with something that looked nothing like the 1951 original — and that was the point. The 40th Anniversary Precision Bass Deluxe was a limited run of 400 numbered instruments built under the John Page-era shop. This one is #208 of 400, finished in the Amber gloss that lets the flame maple top do the talking.

It’s a P-Bass in silhouette only. Underneath sits a fully active, Kubicki-designed preamp and a PJ pair of Lace Sensors that take the instrument somewhere the ’51 never went — and somewhere most Fenders still don’t.

The body pairs an ash back with a flame maple top, and on an Amber finish that pairing is the whole show — the grain ripples under the gloss and shifts as the light moves. Ash gives the bass a tight, articulate backbone with a scooped, punchy character; the maple cap layers brightness and snap over the top.

The neck is a single piece of birdseye maple, bolted on, capped with an ebony fingerboard. Ebony is dense and fast, with a glassy attack and a tight, focused note — a long way from the warm give of rosewood. The birdseye figuring is the kind of detail Fender saved for instruments like this one.

Scale is the standard 34″, with 22 frets giving you a little more room up top than a vintage P-Bass, and a fine-tuner bridge anchoring the other end. It plays like a modern instrument because, for 1991, that’s exactly what it was.

This is an excellent, well-kept example of a bass that rarely surfaces. At #208 of 400 it’s all original throughout, and after three decades it shows only the light character you’d expect from a Custom Shop instrument that’s been cared for rather than gigged hard.

The electronics are fully functional — the Kubicki preamp and Lace Sensors do everything they should across both active and passive modes. It comes complete with its original case and case candy, which matters on a numbered limited edition like this one.

Pickups are Fender Lace Sensors in a PJ layout — a split-coil at the neck for that Precision thump, a single-coil at the bridge for bite and definition. The Lace design stays quiet and clean even with the preamp pushing.

The heart of the bass is the Philip Kubicki-designed 9-volt active preamp. You get a stacked Volume/Pan pod, a stacked Active Treble/Active Bass pod, and a four-position rotary selector that moves between passive, mid-boost and full active voicings. There’s a lot of voice in here once you start working the stacks.

This one’s for the player who wants a Fender that doesn’t sound like every other Fender. It’s a P-Bass that slaps, growls and cleans up modern, with the collectibility of a numbered Custom Shop limited edition and the package to back it up. We don’t see these often — complete, excellent examples even less.