Hi,
so apart from playing with a group of friends I’ve been going to a jam session type of thing, always carrying my own amp & bass which required planning, and going by car every time.
There were 2 basses there already but one seriously neglected in setup, and one is a new vintage P-bass clone by Harley Benton, which means it requires a full setup too.
Now there is a bass amp on the way to this location and I’ve taken it upon myself to set both of these basses up properly, so I can drop in more spontaneously and use their gear.
There was a sticker on top of the headstock, so at first I thought this is an Ibanez similar to my SDGR 800, the shapes are the same down to the tiniest detail.
After removing the sticker I see the name Apollo. No other markings, no serial number, haven’t looked under the neck joint yet.
It seems rather well made, the frets are dulled but hardly worn, the neck to body joint fit is spectacular, very comfy, slim and “fast” neck, smooth fret ends, the whole instrument is quite light, tuners feel smooth and tight.
P/J pickups, passive, 4 knobs, 2 of them with capacitors, so i guess they both for tone, bass & treble boost/cut?
Anyone familiar with this brand? Google isn’t very helpful.
I’ve seen an Apollo bass that was made in Japan. I’d bet this is one of those.
There was/is a Japanese company named Greco that made high end copies of other instruments for decades. They used the Apollo name for some instruments. It could be related to them.
You could also search for “logo lookup” and see if you can find a match.
Good luck. That seems like a real nice bass. Let us know what you find out. It would be interesting to hear what the owner has to say about it.
a chinese made bass mostly sold in eastern europe by the looks
see comment by temcat on the below talkbass thread about a pbass copy with same logo:
‘Chinese brand used to be popular here in Russia several years ago. Cheapest you could find, but pretty good for the price’
and see this old reverb listing in Bulgaria for a 5 string with very similar headstock and body shape
Everything cleaned up nice, but I found out that the truss rod nut is FUBAR, which is probably an explanation for the horribly bowed neck.
Tapping an oversized torx into it didn’t help. Next in line, left handed “corkscrew” extractors. If that doesn’t help, who knows, maybe I’ll learn how to detach and glue a fretboard back on 
Anyway, regarding the fit and finish I mentioned earlier, look at how nice this joint is:
The frets only needed some 2500 grit wet sandpaper & 000 steel wool to bring them back to glory:
The extraction went well, and I managed to quickly source a new truss rod nut (interestingly enough, Fender sized with a 3/16" thread).
I also threw on a set of my used Rotosound RS77 flats, as the strings it came with weren’t shortened before winding. This resulted in a dozen or two of winds on each tuner (very comical, wish I had taken photos), with 2 of them wound the wrong way, so I considered them damaged.
The bass is all adjusted now and back to it’s owner.
Wait, are y’all telling me this bass was not made by Apollo Creed after losing to Rocky?! Nor is it the bass that was first used at the Apollo theatre for the show opener?! Nor was it the first bass to land on the moon?! Oh well, you live and learn.
Nice setup though! And I’d enjoy playing it. All in all it looks like a fun bass.