EB650

[ilan]

What are your thoughts on this? The same seller also has two rare (and painfully expensive) Rics on eBay.

About the mystery seller - from the eBay page: MARGATE, LTD. has been retained by the owner of the World's Largest Collection of Electric Guitars (and other instruments) to manage the reduction of his vast collection of musical instruments which now numbers over 1700 separate items. <snip> This is not a complete liquidation of this collection but what our client calls "a random walk through sale".  That simply means that he has walked through his vast collection with our principals and simply pointed out instruments that he wants to sell  now.
<snip>
The owner of this very large and unique collection will remain anonymous.  In the ads, you will see us refer to him as "Mr. G."-the G is for GUITAR.  Mr.G. has been collecting musical instruments, primarily electric guitars, throughout his life.  As his story is told, his first musical instrument was a SEARS (Danelecto) "dolphin" bass which was purchased when he was fifteen later to be sold three years later upon his graduation from high school and attendance at a major university.  The money was used to buy books.  He swore to himself that one day he would buy another bass guitar just like his first one.  Yes, he now owns 21 of them.  But once he started, he didn't stop and thanks to a very successful business career he has been able to pursue this hobby without hesitancy.

[Dave W]

AFAIK none have sold for over $2500 before. And it's not as rare as he makes it sound.

This one is NOS but has some minor store damage (nicks, scratches, scrapes and discoloration), it's probably not in as good shape as Uwe's or drbassman's.

Reminded a lot of a Rivoli in the way it thumped. -- the seller must have a tin ear.

[ilan]

What do they sound like?

[nofi]

the mysterious 'mr.g' and other passages in the adds make it sound very nigerian.

[Dave W]

What do they sound like?

I'm sure Uwe will be along with his sound description.

What I meant was that if a long scale bass with T-Bird pickups in the middle and bridge positions reminds him a lot of a short scale bass with one mudbucker up by the neck, he's full of hot air or worse.

[uwe]

The comparison has been used before by that seller, but that doesn't make it right. The EB 650 sounds a lot closer to a snarling Ric than to a thumping EB-2. Rather than being goodnatured and all over, it is a very focused sounding bass with an agressive treble and mid edge with only a very small acoustic share in its sound. An all-out rock bass, more agressive than a TBird.

[drbassman]

Yep, the TB pups are strong and clear on this all maple hollow body.  If you want a HB bass without muddddd, this is it.

They actually are somewhat rare in terms of raw numbers, but they didn't sell well during their time.