Not only does the maple change drastically when turned in the light, but so does the African Zebra Wood. It is by far the best planks of Zebra Wood I have ever seen. They have the quality of tiger eye gem stone when turn/rolling it in the light. Light to dark streaks throughout. There is as much purpleheart as in an Alembic five-string bass in the neck. Pin-striped ebony between the body wings and the neck for extra definition. Wenge between the body wing laminates. Padouk (Spelling?) in the middle lam of the seven lam neck. The maple is the neck is truly amazing in its flames/quilts, bird's eye effects. Very solid fundamentals and brilliant highs. It is SN 634 or 639, I forget. I'
ll look atg the back of the headstock later for which. Since Michael started numbering at I believe 182 for bass number and year of build and then just went consecutively after that, this is less than the 500th bass made, and one of the rarest made, and omega cut Signature, top-of-the-line model. Definitely an early pre-Gibson made in his first shop by him and his original staff. I have only seen two basses like this one he made. I did see one with an Explorer body, lesser model, but possibly more rare than this bass. I did not buy it, as this bass was kept by me for over a decade because it is simply the best playing five-string bass I have ever played, and probably the equal of the best playing four string, Alembic 20th Anniversary I sold to a club member a LONG time ago. I have read posts that others agree it is such a great bass to play on posts of club gatherings the new owner took it to. This bass does have the highly sought after 9 volt pre-amp in it.
