My Fender P-Bass had its first ding yesterday. I have no idea how it happened. I went to clean it and noticed a small chip on the body. I blame our two cats that run wild at night when we’re sleeping!
Other than this chip, the bass looks pristine. Look at that! 
What’s the story about the first ding you had on your bass?
Knock on tonewood, I don’t have a ding on any of my basses.
Battle scars! My bass has a few tiny dents on the neck, i.e. the back of the fretboard. No idea why. Other than that, it looks mint for a 24 year old vintage… $150 bass. 
The bass is a tool so it’s normal to get a few scars along the way, especially when you do many live gigs. Belt buckles are also great for scratches and dings.
From home practice I got one big ding when I smashed the body of my fairly new FGN bass into a sturdy table. That one was pretty harsh 
you now have the highly sought after reliced / road word worn bass
Yeah! Don’t sweat it. For me, I put a big old scratch in the first nicer bass I bought the first time I changed its strings 
happens to most of us at some point.
Jr. High. First Pbass. Candy apple red Memphis. Music stand knocked over and the corner went straight to the edge of the horn. I was mortified. It was like an inverse physical wound. Plywood and bondo bits in the center surrounded by the red. Fast forward many years and a little emotional healing and… it finally occurred to me to get it repaired!
I got over this a while ago.
Think about it. If you go to a museum to see anyone’s instrument it ain’t gonna be perfect, and neither should yours unless you buy it new and never take it out of a case. Getty Lee’s bass book has zero pristine basses. It don’t matter.
My brand new German made Hofner has a divot right in the front now. My own doing I’m sure but no clue how. I can now only hope for several more imperfections to make it look even better. Lol.
I used to ding them on purpose when I bought new. That way I didn’t have to worry about it any more. I do the same to the bed of a new truck. I throw a brick in it to get the scratch over with. 
How about the first ding FROM my bass?
Just yesterday when putting on my bass I hit the headstock against the corner of a counter. It chipped off the surface. Bass was fine.
my music room ceiling is very low, it has many dings now from headstocks all over.
Wait.
This…
…is your…
…from…
…and you still have it?
Damn, that’s cool. I wish I still had my first bass.
Yes. Yes it is. After 3 years waiting for a friend to do the repair and repaint it. Very. Very long story. But that’s it! A plywood Memphis in shiny shoes! And as is my way of reusing parts… it has the high mass bridge off of my first custom bass, a Dean, and the leftover tuners from the red and carbon SUB stingray. But that color in the light…
Remember that guitar in a museum in Tennessee
And the nameplate on the glass brought back twenty melodies
And the scratches on the face
Told of all the times he fell
Singin’ every story he could tell
And oh the stories it could tell
And I bet you it still rings like a bell
And I wish we could sit back on the bed in some motel
And listen to the stories we could tell
John Sebastion
Just buy it back!
Too soon? 
Always. 
That said, I keep an eye out for replacements of the first two basses I owned, purely because they’re the two basses that really got me into playing bass. At some point, I’ll probably pick them up.
A Yamaha RBX-260
Actually been keeping my eye out for an RBX260. Hard to find a good clean natural finish one with just a pbass pickup. The 270s come up all the time. And every once in a while, an rbx260f. Fretless. But I’ve only ever seen 2. Maybe one day.
My bass is an RBX260 from that era - but also kinda the first one, so I’ll have to keep it.
And you want the brown colour? Mine is black. 
RBX are fantastic, inexpensive, and you can pick them up fairly easily. You should get one! Good cheap bass that might replace your more expensive basses.
Same goes for things like the Motion Basses.
