Okay, I pulled out my warranty card (from 12/2003), and they're all wrong. I'm paraphrasing here, and do not speak for Alembic, so let's keep it casual, okay?
Essentially it covers you for 12 months, for defects in material, or anything that does not comply with Alembic's normal standard of workmanship, and excludes the obvious things like battery life, bridge saddles, nuts, and frets subject to normal wear and tear and deterioration. There are also exclusions for anything you, or someone like UPS, might do to it, but it's all pretty common sense stuff.
Note carefully that part about Alembic's normal standard of workmanship :-)
Lots of other legal mumbo-jumbo here, though (not being a lawyer, no way) it does strike me as a bit odd that nowhere does it specifically refer to the orginal owner, but instead simply refers to the buyer and 12 months after purchase of the goods by the buyer. (Might want to tighten that up a bit, eh? Or maybe there is some general legal concept that the term buyer refers to some sort of contract between the company issuing the warranty and a person who purchases from them, or an authorized distributor, blahblahblah...)
However, Ray, you've been around here long enough to have a pretty good sense of how these people will take care of you. If there really is something defective about it, you'll almost certainly know within a year. And if you have a problem later than that, they certainly aren't going to try to rip you off on the repair. You'll get advice, maybe schematics or even some replacement parts, recommendations on whether to fix it yourself/have it done locally/bite the bullet and send it home, and so forth.
If it ever turns out there is something wrong that was really their fault, I sincerely doubt they're going to argue about a few months. I'm thinking back over the purchases I've made in my life, and am having a hard time coming up with a case where I was less concerned about the fine print.
You have a wonderful new bass, so I suggest you relax and enjoy it. Should you eventually run into a problem, I expect you will find that, indeed, someone can help you.
-Bob
(Looking back at it, I could have transcribed the entire warranty by now, but as usual I found it more satisfying to editorialize a bit.)
