Rob already answered, and his answer was good enough. Anyone who has read me here knows how I love a rescue project. That bass needed to be fixed.
I think for me the fascination started with #73-39. Something about that one flipped a switch in my head. I owned #89P-5559, but this one was from the very dawn of the instrument-building branch of Alembic. Long story shortened, I missed buying that bass by a few minutes and a phone call. And that was somewhat of a turning point for me. I realized that if I wanted, Alembic would build me exactly that bass, and it's actually still Alembic building it, didn't matter a bit who was in the shop at the time. Then things began to take shape when it dawned that they could literally build anything I could imagine/afford. Ultimately, I had realized that a medium-scale 5-string fretless companion to my Persuader 5-string was really what I wanted, so I had it modeled somewhat on vintage specs, and <boom> there it is today, whittled into reality. It's perfect in every way, in many ways superior to its 1970's ancestors.
When the time was right, I eventually did get my vintage Alembic, #77-621, and made a friend too. #73-39 ended up where she was supposed to as well. #73-28 here is perfect for Rob... he loves these things as much or more than I do.
