This is a picture of a bass guitar that I bought on the fleemarket. The thing was very cheap I paid 80 DM, that's approx. 40 USD. I don't know the brand but the pickups seem to be Russian (and they sound like that). It's a wonderfull looking instrument with a perfect glossy finish. The neck is extremely thick - like a double bass and the action is high because the neck is bolted with only two screws on the body. It's a huge instrument and I love it because I'm 1,90 m tall and don't like to play these mini-guitars, it looks silly on stage!
The sound of the bass is very vintage and semi-acoustic. It brings a lot of mid range frequencies but sounds good. I left the original flat wound strings on it and it's perfect for playing that old style Beat music.
In my band the ' Weirdo Stompers ' we also play a lot of instrumental songs of east european groups of the sixties (Franke Echo Quintett for example). Old Musimas and Jolanas are the right thing for doing that. We can't use this bass for live-acts, I'm afraid the neck would break from the body but I used it in a record studio with my rockabilly band I had before.
Back to the bass: I found no information about which brand this could be, maybe you know more about it and can tell me. There is a funny little detail on it: there are no knobs for the belt but little metal rings. Modern guitar belts would not fit but this old ones you had for acoustic guitars. The electric circuit is also interesting: there is a volume pot and a pot for adjust the balance between the two pickups. This would be nice but the the pots are too cheap for allow a good function - they are like switches: on or off.