The Last Bass Outpost

Sweetwater lists the weight for each one on their site (others may too, IDK), it's kind of interesting to compare the different serial numbers and see how much the weight varies on the same model.

I moved to the south (Atlanta, GA) and thought I was done with cold after living in Minnesota and North Dakota....I guess its time to move to Florida.

I called on that one when it first appeared on the guitar center site too.  At first was told it had no repairs and pushed them on the black painted corner.  Got someone else on the phone and was told it the control cavity had been "repaired somehow" and lost interest at that point not knowing how bad it could have been.  $8K just seems like a lot for damaged bass and a repair that got covered with black paint...who knows whats under there.

Off the release for the 2014's it was listed under "Innovations" with the tag line - "New Model Year serial numbering system enhances collectability"....

They also listed newly improved "Non-slip knobs"...that one made me chuckle for some reason.

I've had several cases from that era that would fit a Les Paul, or an EB-0,3,4L, but not very well for any of them. I'm assuming that some guitars were shipped in them since they were Gibson cases, or paired with them at a dealer........

 

That may well be the case with mine since the case it came in is for a 70s EB of some sort. The case is in nearly mint condition and the only wear marks on the interior cloth appear to be from this bass.  It doesn't fit too bad really.

My wife-to-be had quite the surprise waiting for me this morning, its a great NBD 

Well it's a known fact (documented on that other site) that if the upper horn does not reach the 12th fret the bass will dive so all Rippers suffer from it.  There's no need to actually try or own the instrument,  its a fact that you can see from the pictures.   

The alder bodies are much lighter than the maple. One of my alder Rippers is just a little above 8 lbs and the dive is pretty bad, even using a Fretsling strap.

AHH, the Fretsling.  My only strap!     I had to resort to buying tanned cowhides and cutting my own because I honestly cant stand to play with anything else.  Someone isnt actually making them again are they?

They're going to have to do a lot more than change colors year to year and add a funny inlay to get me motivated to pull the trigger on one.  The signature is something different but the rest of the line just seems to be more of last year.

To be fair, they really did have a lot of new basses the over the last year (Midtown, 335, EB, NR Bird) so maybe the new models have to taper off for a while.