Interesting Gibson with P and J pickups!!

[Hornisse]

http://cgi.ebay.com/80s-Gibson-PowerBass-Power-Bass-Alpine-White-USA-/140538898940?pt=Guitar&hash=item20b8c569fc



Looks to have a Mahogany body too!  I like it!!

[Dave W]

That's a Q90, not a "PowerBass."

Uwe has a piezo version in white and (IIRC) one with magnetic pickups. The body is mahogany, the original P/J pickups were by PJ Marx.

[uwe]

Clearer and more detailed than its predecessor, the Q-80, which had Grabber pups and a fatter neck, but also with less ooomph. The Q-80 feels, soumds, looks and plays more substantial. But the Q-90 probably mirrored more what people wanted of a bass with a "pointy headstock" in the late eighties, a relatively clear sound and the rest is pumped up in the studio.

[Dave W]

These usually go in the $500 range IIRC, which is not bad at all for what it is.

[uwe]

Gibson has produced, let's say, "more charismatic" basses than this unlucky fellow. They probably only produced these to get some surplus Victory bodies out and as a stop-gap for the new models (LP basses, EB-650, EB-750) they would bring out in the early nineties. Late eighties saw Gibson's bass offerings in disarray, Q-90, Q-80, 20/20, Gibson IV/V and the few Victories that still limped along were all either outdated (Victory), odd ducks (20/20) or faceless (all the others), the 1987/88 re-introduced TB IV, a member of the future generation of Gibson basses and eventually a consistent seller, was only starting to generate sales back then. The Q-90 was a barrel-scraping to milk a few more sales out of the Q-80 which had already failed.