The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

It is pretty clean that the bran id "Johnny Pro". There may have been the same bass branded as Fresher. There are a lot of people out there claiming to know the un-knowable.

You seem to be a little bit angry, my friend? Why?

Fact is, that there are only a few guitars and basses left on the market (especially on Ebay/Germany) named "Johnny Pro". So we're speculating that "Johnny Pro"-instruments maybe are a serial from a bigger japanese brand of these days - like Kasuga oder Fresher ...

For me it's not important, how much money a bass like this could be worth. It's just interesting to find out something about an musical-instrument that's maybe 30 years old ...

P.S. I don't know if the said instrument-maker is an expert, but he's selling japanese-guitars for many years ...

Sorry if I came across as angry. Frustrated is more like it. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Fresher was a brand made mostly for the domestic Japanese market. From the information I could find they were typical MIJ instruments that copied existing designs and were made by a variety of factories. They also had a line with built in effects. Some people believe these were original designs but I have seen the same designs badged as Univox and Aria as well as a couple of other names i don't remember right now. Since Fresher was not a factory or even a design house your bass would not be a Fresher bass unless it was branded as Fresher.

As these factories made their instruments for anyone who would pay them and they would put any brand on them they were asked to (they even left many unbranded) it is entirly possible your bass is identical to a Fresher model. It is even possible that the Kyowa Company, which owned the Fresher brand, also owned the John Pro brand though I have found no indication that this was the case.

If you are finding them in Germany it is possible they were the house briand of a German importer or music store.

I can understand your frustration about misinformation and so called experts, but it's just like a detectives work to found out something about japanese instruments ... So I would like to thank you for your effort to help me ...

It is well possible that Johnny-Pro-Instruments were especially made for the german market ... On Ebay-Germany there are sometimes guitars from this brand - for example: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Johnny-Pro-Str-t ... 19f3a9fd0d ... You see: Same decal on the neck, just the sign "made in japan" on the plate ...