 
Vox Clubman - Vox Guitars
This advertisement comes from a book: the Shadows modern electric guitar tutor. The Shadows were a very well known British band, and guitarist Hank Marvin invented the Tremolo (you can see his signature) on the Phantom and Consort shown here. The text and images are mostly the same as the 1963 catalogue, although the Consort shown here does not have the teardrop headstock. |
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The Vox clubman bass was a short scale (30"), two-pickup bass, with separate volume controls and one master tone control. This one has a mahogany body (other woods, solid and laminate, may well have been used) and sycamore neck and fretboard. Dot inlays. Some Vox necks are super-thin (notably the Vox Bassmaster and Vox Panther), though the clubman far less so. In fact the width at the nut is 1 5/8"; a 1/4" more than the Bassmaster. Dating this instrument is not difficult; the neck heel is stamped with the date Feb 1965.
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 Typical to early British made Vox's, it has the Green Vox logo, model name and 'JMI Dartford Kt' (JMI = Jennings Musical Industries, Kt refers to the county of Kent, UK). These were just decals of course, at this stage, Vox didn't have workers capable of complicated inlay work.
 The necks were made by a British furniture manufacturer, Stuart Darkins in Shoeburyness, out of sycamore, and had no truss rod. The guitars were then assembled in Vox's Dartford plant. The lack of a truss rod means only lighter guage strings should be used for this bass.
 Simple open-gear tuning keys like these were used widely by Vox in the early days. Another early feature, only seen in the earliest British Vox's, is the serial number stamped on the reverse of the headstock (just below the 'E' tuning key).
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 The Clubman bass is perhaps less of a a Fender copy than many other early Vox's, but is still nothing like the Phantom and Mark (tear-drop) basses that Vox were producing at the time. This is a very light bass, weighing in at just kg.
 The compensating bridge is a simple stamped metal design, with a cover featuring the Vox logo. This simple design is rather like that of an early Fender Precision, and was used widely on solid body Vox basses.
 Unlike the (very similar) Vox Bassmaster, the Clubman has a volume control for each pickup, and one master tone. As is the case in almost all of these early Vox guitars, the co-axial output has been replaced for a regular guitar jack.
 The clubman was equipped with two Vox chrome covered single coil pickups. These Vox pickup casings were often marked with the same Vox logo as on the bridge cover, though not in this instance. The pickups themselves were a fairly simple single-coil design.
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