| If he has to look for its parts, I hope he got a good deal on it...
Seriously though, I'm not sure what your looking for here.
The Fender Precision was the first electric bass. In the early years,
it so dominated its niche that "Fender Bass" became a generic term
(like "jello"). The name came from the fact that as a fretted
instrument, it allowed bass players to play with "precision."
The original Precision came out in 1951?? (give or take a year or
two). It featured a slab (no contours) body, one single coil
pickup, and volume and tone controls.
After the introduction of the Strat (mid 50's), the P-Bass was
modified with strat-like contours, and a split-coil pickup. The peg
head changed from an overgrown tele style to an overgrown strat
style. Other than minor cosmetic changes, the basic P-bass remains
the same today (after almost 40 years). Various current P-bass
models may expand on the basic design with different electronics
(active pick-ups, lace sensors, etc). You can also get a
fretless Precision bass (although, I guess that is somewhat of
an oxymoron).
Most off-brand or "beginner" basses are P-bass clones.
The Fender Jazz Bass differs from the Precision in that it has
a narrower neck at the nut, and two pickups.
A number of vendors offer replacement pickups, tuning machines,
and bridges for P-basses. In addition, the volume and tone pots
(like any others) tend to get noisey with age, and may need to
be replaced.
Jim
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