Honestly I have no idea what you talk about here...Sorry. Isn't the M-85-II the same semi-solid bass (not fully hollow!) as the M-85? (I am talking viantage, not Newark St.) Why do you say Guild just slammed electronics on a body to get it out of inventory? Which body would that have been ??? I am totally confused by what you said.
Ralf
Whoops.
First I am not being picky about model numbers so M85 I has one PU and M85 II has two. Dunno what they were officially called. 1970 was an interesting year in Guild bass land. They introduced what we now call the JS although it was probably cataloged as JetStar in 1970 and the humbucker bass PU. There are Starfires with Bisonics and humbuckers. No surprise. There are JS II basses with two bisonics, a bisonic and a Hagstrom non-Bisonic and two humbuckers. So ignoring the body change it is possible that there were M85IIs with two Bisonics, two different Hagstroms and two humbuckers. I've seen the first, this bass is an example of the third and I believe a very rare configuration. Guild discontinued the M85 for at least 1971 and when it was reintroduced it was a solid body with two humbuckers. So the "hollow" M85 differs from the solid M85 because the former is fatter and has front and back binding and the latter has a control cavity. Most of the time if you see humbuckers they will be on the solid M85 which is why this bass is noteworthy.
I've been told that unlike the Starfire which has a center block, the M85 is really a true hollow body. I have never investigated the truth of that.
Slapping stuff on is based on several non catalog instruments discussed on LTG. The most relavent to this case was the double cutaway JS body with a B302 bridge, pickguard and pickups. We have seen two of these and the serial numbers date to 1977 which was the last year of the JS and just before the B30x was introduced.
