Author Topic: Ebay item # 7340379687 (Read 831 times)

pmoran · « **on:** July 31, 2005, 08:38:20 AM »

i only own 2 alembics (sold my 3rd 3 weeks ago), so i'm far from an expert. could the other members of the club take a look at this new ebay listing and tell me why the 24th fret would be gouged like this? i mean, a reason other than the bass being stolen. i've looked at the stolen alembic registry and can't match this particular bass to a listed stolen alembic. is this a distillate? seems fishy to me.

keith_h · « **Reply #1 on:** July 31, 2005, 11:09:46 AM »

Do you have a link? I searched the US ebay and did not see any Distillate listed.

Keith

lowlife · « **Reply #2 on:** July 31, 2005, 01:11:05 PM »

Here's the link, I think. http://cgi.ebay.com/ALEMBIC-BASS-GUITAR-NO-RESERVE_W0QQitemZ7340379687QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ellery (Lowlife)

pmoran · « **Reply #3 on:** July 31, 2005, 02:39:18 PM »

that's the bass i'm talking about. i don't know how to get the link on this page. sorry. am i the only one who can see that the entire 24th fret, including the serial number, has been gouged out of the fretboard? ideas, anyone?

lowlife · « **Reply #4 on:** July 31, 2005, 02:47:41 PM »

I agree. Looks like it's been gouged-out to me also. Have you emailed the seller for details?

Ellery (Lowlife)

pmoran · « **Reply #5 on:** July 31, 2005, 04:26:38 PM »

i messaged him on the ebay internal messenger at about 5pm CDT and have not received a response. as his ad claims, i'm sure he's going to say he doesn't know anything about the bass. i found that curious to be in the ad in the first place, so i began looking closely at the pics. i was truly astounded to find the 24th fret virtually gone. as i mentioned in my initial post, i went thru the stolen alembics list and can't seem to match what i see in the pics to any of the basses listed. the bass looks like a distillate and i can't match this bass to any of the basses listed on the stolen list because so many of the basses listed on the stolen list provide very little identifying info save for model and serial number. no serial number on this one, and the seller hasn't responded to my direct inquiry asking why the fret is gone and if he can provide a serial number. i'm sure the seller really knows why the fret is gone and that's why he preemptively mentions he knows nothing about the bass and provides no info in order to prove his claim. interesting how people are now bidding on a possibly stolen bass w/a neck cracked all to hell at the worst possible place!

pmoran · « **Reply #6 on:** July 31, 2005, 04:44:38 PM »

strangely enough, after posting that last message here about attempting to contact the seller, i'm now being flooded w/fake ebay messages telling me my account will be deleted if i don't update my info by clicking on a link, as if i'm stupid enough to fall for the fake update link trick! these messages are all infected w/a virus attached to an attachment called eagle. my anti-virus caught all the infection attempts. something strange is going on here.

pmoran · « **Reply #7 on:** July 31, 2005, 07:17:51 PM »

strangely, as of 9:15pm CDT, july 31, this bizarre saga has come to an end. the seller has w/drawn the item from sale due to an error in the listing. very curious, if you ask me. this entire situation has all the markings of a stolen bass for sale on ebay.

David Houck · « **Reply #8 on:** August 01, 2005, 07:07:12 AM »

Wow! Glad your computer is ok. The pictures are gone too.

pmoran · « **Reply #9 on:** August 02, 2005, 10:07:33 AM »

hi, dave. i know the pics are gone, which is also a first for a w/drawn ad in my experience. i wish to heck that i had downloaded the pics so everyone could take a look. obviously, the seller has now done everything he could to hide the trail so no one could identify the bass. i'm absolutely certain he was accessing this page and reading my posts. each time i posted a message about this bass, something would happen, whether it was my account being inundated w/fake update or be deleted messages or the offer being w/drawn or the pics being deleted. i would go back and forth between this page and the ad, and i noticed a direct correlation between posts here and something happening w/ebay. so, in my humble opinion, and i was an assistant criminal district attorney here in san antonio for 5 years, we have a bass thief trying to sell a stolen bass. i'm pretty sure it was a distillate. maple top. purpleheart laminate neck. plate under the 24th fret had almost all of the finish scraped off and there were gouge marks on what finish remained. virtually the entire 24th fret was gone. it didn't look clean enough to have been gouged w/a router; more looked like someone had taken a rat-tail file and just filed it off, leaving concentric gouges in the fretboard. as i recall, it had a crown peghead. maybe LOWLIFE can provide more details.

lowlife · « **Reply #10 on:** August 02, 2005, 10:34:54 AM »

I wish that I could. I only remember the bass because I hadn't seen too many older Alembics with just one pickup (it did have one pickup, right?)

I didn't email the seller, but I did notice that after each of the 3 times that I went directly to the eBay add, I also got the fake update/or be deleted message.

Ellery (Lowlife)

jagerphan84 · « **Reply #11 on:** August 02, 2005, 11:06:40 AM »

(Message edited by jagerphan84 on August 02, 2005)

pmoran · « **Reply #12 on:** August 02, 2005, 12:34:41 PM »

LOWLIFE is correct that it had a single soapbar pickup, and i think it only had 2 controls like a volume and pan, maybe. i'm pretty sure it was a distillate. i've got a spoiler and it was similar to a spoiler, so that's what makes me think it was a distillate. it did not have all of the spoiler electronics, that's for sure. weird that LOWLIFE had the same fake update or be deleted messages each time he visited ebay that i also got. also, when i speak of the 24th fret, i do mean the fingerboard below the 24th fret; i.e., the piece of wood we all know as the usual place to find an alembic serial number on so many different alembic models. the actual fret itself was still there, but all of the wood was absolutely gouged out; again, as if it had been done w/a rat-tail file!

dela217 · « **Reply #13 on:** August 02, 2005, 04:51:32 PM »

You guys mean this one? It looks like a spoiler to me.

dela217 · « **Reply #14 on:** August 02, 2005, 04:59:26 PM »

I found this in my cache. If you visited the auction, you can find this pic on your computer in the temporary internet files folder. All of his pictures started with GTR. So, you can do a search for GTR*.* and you will see them.