I knew the sound I wanted, and some general idea of how to achieve that sound. Went trawling at a price point and found a surprise.
It's the most hideous orange. Roasted pine with natural finish. Perfectly ugly.
All the plastic is still on it, and it looks relatively untouched aside from some scrapes in the plastic over the pickguard here or there.
Still has the tuner condoms on. Someone around here called them that. Was it Loop?

Consider my bass game officially "bettered."
Waiting for the amp to arrive. Was supposed to be here yesterday, but got delayed in shipping for some reason. So, in the meantime, futzed with old faithful and got that Jazz growl to come through a bit:
So ends what I'm capable of playing on the bass with my fingers at the moment.

Messed with it enough to know the truss isn't seized, and everything has plenty of adjustment on it for when I do my setup after it's settled a few days. I'm *PUMPED* to get the amp and hear that growl come to life at real bass rumble volumes.