the horror....the horror

[rockinrayduke]

http://cgi.ebay.com/1961-EPIPHONE-NEWPORT-EBD-BASS-2-PICKUPS-ULTRA-RARE-NR_W0QQitemZ160222550313QQihZ006QQcategoryZ118984QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Somebody should restore this.

[gweimer]

I'll be watching that one.

[chromium]

Very sweet bass.  Bet it would patch up nice and make a great player.

Does that guy (or the previous owner) have an aversion to glue and clamps or what!   

[OldManC]

That could be a great project!

[gweimer]

You are all evil, and I'm going to hell.  I just threw my hat in the ring for that one.

[Bass VI]

Man!

 I'd had hoped this one would have flown under the radar! ( like that happens around here ) I was hoping to catch it for research and development. Uwe, are congrats ( and a trip to your luthier ) in order? Would it be too much to ask the lucky future owner ( I hope one of us ) for pics and tracings? This would be the logical step ( backwards ) from my Embassy clone project.



Cheers!

S.

[Dave W]

Very sweet bass.  Bet it would patch up nice and make a great player.

Does that guy (or the previous owner) have an aversion to glue and clamps or what!   

Seems that way. But what's behind that first and second fret screw-down? My guess is that it was done to correct a separation between the fretboard and neck in that area. I've seen that before on earlier Gibsons and Epis. It's not common but it does happen.

[uwe]

I'm not bidding on this. The screw-down is plain horrible, though it can be made unseen again. Or put bullet cartridges where the screws are ...

[gweimer]

I'm not bidding on this. The screw-down is plain horrible, though it can be made unseen again. Or put bullet cartridges where the screws are ...

I thought of you the minute I saw that.   My luthier may be able to come up with something creative if I get this.  I have a feeling it will go out of my price range.  Even if it IS a '61, my price limit is still going to be pretty low.  There's a lot of hits on this, and so far, some active bidding.

[MARICOPAA]

I was offered this bass for $2800 about a week ago and after looking at all the pictures and showing them to my luthier...at that price I passed.

I'm sure others were offered the bass...clearly everyone was doubtful so up it goes on eBay.

It is going to be a very expensive fix to do right so $800 for the bass would be more like it. I doubt it will go that low. Good luck to anyone here bidding on it! We'll see soon ;-)

[Dave W]

$2800!?    Yow! Well, at least he put it up with no reserve. Frankly, I wouldn't go $800 for it. But we'll see what the marketplace says. You never know.

[Bass VI]

$800, I hope not, to much unseen and unseemly work. However, my "day job" is guitar repair and I've seen much more misguided attempts at fixes, usually at the hands of an owner who's trying to "save" his guitar. The best (or worst) happened last week, a guy brought in an inexpensive acoustic/electric guitar, headstock wrapped in about 3 feet of duct tape, now the best part.....he'd taken a shoelace tied it to the D string tuner, down to a large woodscrew ( right into the heel of the neck ) and back up to the G string tuner ( I wish I had pics! ) none of this had any effect the break ( go figure ) but at the time, I think the guy sincerely thought he'd come up with a fix. Not to hijack this thread, but these Epi neck joints are a little weak ( I had to reset the neck on my Newport ) so the "repair" on this one is sort of understandable, but not correct IMHO.
We'll see how it goes, I'd still like to get tracings and pics if one of us wins it.

Cheers,

S.

[uwe]

Prices are really marching up even on the Epi stuff now. Add to that the fretless Ripper which went for 2.000 bucks a few days ago and we should all be very happy with our investments. It seems that old TBirds and EBs were only the start and we havn't seen the end of it yet.

I warn you of the subprime (and in a Fenderista world all Gibson basses are subprime!  ) bass craze!!!

[gweimer]

Agreed that Epiphone prices are sharply on the rise.  Even some of that really nasty '70s Japanese stuff is getting a lot more money than I'd pay.  The "Holy Crap" bass model (ET-288M?) has gone as high as $800 in recent months.

The Newport is climbing fast.  One early bidder has out bid me already, and I'm tempted to let it go.  I have other things to worry about.  Still, the thought of recovering that '61 is still pretty tempting.  I may go a little higher, but not a lot.  I have tomorrow to think about it.

[Dave W]

I remember passing on a couple of regular single pickup Newports in the late 90s, both were under $500, unbroken and all original. That boat has sailed.