When I was in Gruhn's in Nashville a couple of years ago, there was a 57 Precision, sunburst with the anodized gold pickguard for the "bargain" price of $25k hanging on the bottom rack in front. I've played Fenders that old before, but not with price tags that high hanging on them. This was downstairs and not the vaunted "upstairs" where the elite get to pick from instruments worth more than my workplace. I say 'workplace' because a television station is moderately valuable and selling my house wouldn't even buy a pre-war Martin.
Speaking of old Martins, the day I was in there, there was some guy who looked half-drunk, ham-handedly beating the living shit out of a moderately priced $100k model, barefoot sitting in a rocking chair. I can only assume he was a doctor or lawyer living out his Eric Clapton fantasy and had probably dropped over seven figures in there over the years to get to abuse the guitars like that. This guy sucked so bad, I'm a better guitar player than he was!
I did get my Waterstone 12'er there that day though. What got my attention was the headstock, which is over a foot long and covered in tuners, and I got curious. When I saw a "normal" price on it, my wife said I should try it out just to see how awful it would sound, especially since I'm a fingers only player and multistrings are typically pick basses.
Their test room was a closet under a staircase full of various new Fender amps and the usual never-selling used junk guitar amps, not a bass amp in the lot, even a practice one (nor was there one on the sales floor unless you count tweed Bassmans .) I plugged into a Fender Concert reissue and began playing. Two minutes later, my wife said, "You're buying that." But man did it ever freak me out to have to walk by that $25k P-bass, which was kind of in the way no matter where you walked, carrying that huge Waterstone. I was afraid i was going to hit it or knock it off the rack.
...and on the subject of provenance, Gruhn's is the ONLY stocking dealer for Waterstone basses in the world because Tom Petersson is a regular there. He lives in Nashville. They had two 12er's, one new and one used, but both for the same price. I tried out them both and the used one was better and had a better color, green over flame maple as opposed to the "bad Les Paul cherrywannabe" on the other. After I bought the used one, the guy at the counter told me who it had belonged to previously. Guess who?
Tom had only let it go because it was 34" and he didn't like the extra tension, so I have a Tom Petersson signature bass that used to belong to Tom Petersson. Man I need to get some Cheap Trick vinyl!
