This sure looks like a bargain.

[exploiterplayer]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4713&item=7323943437&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[sfnic]

Reserve Not Met
 
ayup.

[exploiterplayer]

Hi sfnic, I was commenting on the $1250.00 buy it now price as being a bargain.  If you read the description, the first line is....$1000.00 Reserve(in Big Red print;~). This would surely be a low amount for that nice bass.
Cheers

[bsee]

Actually, sub-$1000 Epics have not been uncommon on the used market.  This is a nice maple top where most are dark wood, but it is otherwise about the most common used Alembic you'll see on the market.
 
It's certainly a bargain compared to the cost of a new one, or when you compare price to performance.  By history, though, $1250 would be a higher-than-average price for a 10 year old Epic on eBay.

[exploiterplayer]

Thanks for the input bsee. At these prices I'm tempted to buy a few used Epics on the speculation that they will fetch much more later. Dollar for dollar (besides the Spoiler) I dont see anything remotely close to the quality in the present used market.

[sfnic]

I still like the brazeness of posting a $0.99 opening bid with a note that there's a $1k reserve.
 
Mostly, it's the posting the reserve that, in this case, bugs me a little.  If you're _telling_ everybody you won't accept less than a grand, why not simply start the bidding there?  If you want the churn a low starting bid brings, why post the reserve?  Counter-intuitive auction technique, either way.
 
Recent Epic 4s on eBay have gone for:
  $1025.00
  $1183.00
  $ 999.99 (Buy Now)
  $ 932.00
  $ 985.43
  $ 995.00 (lefty)
 
So a $1k reserve isn't at all out of line.  The $1250 BiN may be a little out of range, but again, if you don't ask for it, you'll never get it.  And if you do, you might.
 
My tracking isn't all that old (my earliest record is 11/28/04), so I don't know how they'll appreciate as investments (of course, if I did own that crystal ball, I probably wouldn't post it), but I suspect you'd do better in long-term bonds.
 
Of course, you can't PLAY a long-term bond...
 
And, as Clay points out, from a quality perspective, they're an incredible deal when compared to anything else out there.  I mean, what other basses out there regularly sell for around a grand?  Old Fenders and pre-Gibson Tobiases and damned little else.  
 
Now, Mike, god love him, made some damned fine basses back in the day (and still does with the MTD series), but that was then and they don't come up that often on eBay.  And even back then, Mike wasn't targetting the same degree of waaay out there specs that Alembic did.
 
Old Fenders are often cherished more for their shortcomings (at least, those that affect their tone) than their overall quality.

[David Houck]

Nic; just out of curiosity, and if you don't mind saying, which instruments are you tracking??  And it's understandable if this is something you don't care to divulge.

[sfnic]

I'm tracking _anything_ Alembic, except pickups-in-hand and catalogs.
 
Mostly, I seem to be tracking 5000 instances of Guitar Center trying to sell overpriced Spoilers.
 
I'm also tracking Tobias and Turner instruments.  I used to track A/DA gear, since I worked for them back in the dark ages, but that got too weird when I started adding in amps and speaker cabs and pedal controllers and all that other crap.  So I dumped the A/DA stuff.
 
Mostly, I'm tracking stuff so I can find examples of instruments from various stages of a company's development.  Like old Series basses or early Turner Model 1s.
 
I also get a vicarious thrill out of seeing how much people will ask/pay for some really strange things.  Like the guy who couldn't get a nibble on his Tobias Toby Deluxe 4 (made last year in Czechoslovakia) at $499, or the other guy who GOT $450 for a Toby Deluxe 5, when most of them go for about $300.
 
Let's see, Since I started in November, I've tracked 225 eBay listings for assorted Alembic gear, which (as of yesterday) have resulted in 101 sales, 10 in progress and the rest nosales.
 
Hmmm. Taking out the duplicates, I've got:
 
1 Brown Bass
1 Cal Special Guiter
4 Elan 4
1 Elan 6
1 Electrum Guitar
9 Epic 4 (1 lefty)
10 Epic 5 (1 lefty)
2 Epic 5 Fretless
4 Epic 6
9 Essence 4 (1 custom)
3 Essence 5
3 Essence 6
1 Europa 4
2 Europa 5
2 Excel 4 (1 fretless)
2 Exploiter 4
1 Exploiter Guitar
14 F-1X preamp
13 F-2B preamp
2 Further Guitar
2 Mark King 4 (Std or Deluxe?)
1 Mark King Deluxe 4
4 Mark King Standard 4
3 Orion 5
3 Orion Guitar
2 Persuader 4
1 Rogue 5
6 Series I 4
2 Series I Guitar
2 Series II 4 (1 lefty)
2 SF-1 filter
1 SF-2 filter
2 Skylark Guitar
9 Spoiler 4
2 Stanley Clarke Deluxe 4
3 Stanley Clarke Standard 4
1 Stratoblaster
2 Tribute Guitars
1 Triple Omega
 
There have been other Stratoblasters; I only just started tracking them.  There have also been 8-12 sets of pickups, a handful of catalogs and I think a few sets of strings.
 
sidenote:  I'm delighted to share any and all research I do, as it's almost completely based on publicly-accessible sources.  If I come across something that I think might hurt Alembic, either the company or the people, I'll hold it back and generally say why.  But as for general production data, we can all see how many instruments they've made by looking at each month's showcase special.  
 
Pricing?  For new stuff, there're the online calculators.  For eBay, all the records are there; I'm merely keeping a spreadsheet.  Manufacturing techniques?  The website is full of info.  There are very few trade secrets regarding Alembic; anybody with guitar-making experience can figure out most of the lutherie elements, and anybody with a Masters degree in analog circuit design and a good memory for chip specifications can figure out the electronics.
 
Putting it all together to make a viable company is easy, too.  It just takes 30-40 years of 24/7 dedication and a fanatical attention to detail, coupled with a healthy amount of raw genius in about three dozen seperate-but-interrelated fields, and an overwhelming sense of personal and corporate survival.

[David Houck]

Thanks Nic!!  That's quite an interesting collection of data.

[pnchad]

Hello sfnic,
Have you seen the '85 Distillate on eBay? I don't see this model mentioned anywhere. I am a newbie here looking for my first Alembic.  
thanks in advance for any insight you might lend.
pnchad

[kungfusheriff]

Used Epic 4s are tagged for less than $1250 in Guitar Center, so to me there's no reason a private seller should be asking that much for a person-to-person transaction because they don't have to deal with the same overhead costs.
If I may interject my opinion on the Distillate, it would be worth buying at between $1200 and $1500...I know people who have bought this model bass recently for about $1800, but that was for a full-on Distillate, and the eBay bass has downgraded electronics and finish damage, both of which should detract from the price.
But it's eBay, so who knows where it will end up.

[bsee]

Functionally, the eBay Distillate is a small/thin bodied Spoiler with purpleheart laminates added to the neck.  I would concur with KFS on the value range.  
 
-Bob

[sfnic]

I agree with both KFS and Bob.
 
The only Distillate I have in my pricing database went for $2k (music store sale).  So, figure $1800-2000 is the right ballpark for a real Distillate.
 
As Bob says, it's basically a Spoiler with about $200-400 worth of upgrades.  Spoilers generally go for between $900 and $2300.  Call it $1600 average, then add the upcharges to get to $1800-2000.  For this eBay item, knock off about $400 for the downgrades and damage, and you're smack in the middle of the $1200-1500 KFS suggests.
 
nic

[pnchad]

Thanks guys. You're always a wealth of knowledge.
paul (the upright)