well my condolences to the widow. Looks like her husband had an *outstanding* bass collection. But now it becomes a business proposition unfortunately, so sentimentality goes by the wayside.
Kudos to the auction house for trying to get top dollar for their client but IMHO they're doing her a disservice by pricing the items unrealistically and drawing the process out for months. While they are prime instruments, it has to be borne in mind that they are after all, used instruments. So unless there's some provenance that means something (as in played by John Entwistle on his last tour) it's really difficult to justify paying that kind of money.
Having lost an *outstanding* bass collection in a divorce, i've seen both sides of this coin. in my case, my ex literally gave my stuff away (mostly out of spite, i suppose), which is probably how the spyder made its way from me to where it is now.
i had (still have) have the money available to buy my/your old spyder back, and i considered it for a minute or two but i just bought a brand new bass and dropping $17k USD on another [used] one is very hard to rationalize, sentimental value or not.
so we'll revisit this again around christmas time, see if anything's changed. i've been wrong before, but i'm pretty sure they're still gonna be up for sale.
my dead horse is starting to complain about the constant beating, so i'd better get back to work.
