The Fender Precision bass used to record The Specials’ 1981 hit Ghost Town, is headed to auction and could fetch up to £20,000 (approx. $27,000).
Its sale is being handled by the auction house Gardiner Houlgate, which has sold off the 12-string guitar that Mark Knopfler “borrowed” for 50 years, Peter Green's career-reviving Fender Duo-Sonic, and the Wuthering Heights Les Paul in recent years.
Built in 1971, the modded Fender was used by Horace Panter to record the song’s iconic, politically tinted gloominess, with the song written while Britain was in the grips of a recession. It also features in the song’s music video.
Like many established players sending their gear to auction, Panter wants to see it used, not collect dust in a vault.
“This is a bass guitar that’s going to stir up quite a lot of interest among fans and collectors,” says Gardiner Houlgate’s auctioneer, Luke Hobbs. “Ghost Town is such an evocative track reflecting the social and political unrest of Britain at that time – and Horace Panter’s bass is a big part of it.”
After The Specials, who broke up the following year, Panter used the instrument in the new wave supergroup General Public. The band also featured members of The Beat, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and The Clash.
Panter bought the bass from a guitar store in Kettering in 1981, and it had already been modified to feature a now-replaced Metallic Blue finish, a brass bridge and nut, DiMarzio pickups, and a thinned-down neck. That gives it a more Fender Jazz-like playability.
Later down the line, Panter also modded the guitar, installing a brass pickguard and matching knobs, and repainted it with a Power Blue colorway.
The British band were a key driver of the two-tone ska revival that swept across the island in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and this bass was a key part of the band's success. It’s set to be auctioned off on March 10.
See Gardiner Houlgate for more information.
