Well, things change fast around here! I was polishing the oversized LP the other day and guess what I found? The tailpiece inserts were coming out of the body!!!! I mean really, I just never expected that. As usual in these cases, the inserts weren't coming out straight up, but tilting toward the bridge. They were up by about 1/8" or so. I immediately loosened the strings and took it to the shop the next day.
They offered to repair it, but I have a personal policy of not keeping brand new basses that need repair if I can get away with it. I know the bridge is fixable by pulling the inserts and dropping CA down there, but I just have an objection to doing these things on new items that should work properly out of the box!
I wanted a replacement, but Gibson has no more of them. I said how about a TB IV Special in cherry? Fresh out. How about any TB IV? No gots! I'm not a fan of their other current bass offerings. So, I got a little irritated and said screw it and walked out with a JetGlo RIC 4003. End of LP. Makes you wonder what their doing down there in Nashville these days.
To be honest, I played the RIC for a couple hours at practice last night and the neck wasn't hard to navigate after all. Oh well............