Wood is a forgiving medium, but this is a tough room... 😄
I'm just thinking - the number of shops that could have pulled off a neck beam replacement on a Series bass using the original body wings, then adding on laminates (?) in the 70's has to be pretty small. It ain't that bad.
The joints appear to be tight, and not sloppy, it retains its original shape. It clearly functions as a bass. The inlays look a little tacky, but that's a taste thing, and it was clearly meant to be a personalization. The extra body laminates look a bit amateurish. I wonder if they were added later, or were needed for extra cavity depth? A thin, maple pinstripe accent would've helped, if you just had to add another layer. (looks like it had a mahogany or cherry core, with rosewood top and back to start with) In the ad it says the wood backplates were added later by the same apprentice, who earlier (?) had added the extra laminates. I wasn't really clear about what was done or when. Maybe we're seeing stages of work... re-work?
The brass tailpiece and bridge are interesting... they don't conform to anything ordinary I've ever seen on an early '77 bass. If someone made them purposefully for this application, good job. Why not use the originals? For comparison, here's the bridge and bird on #77-621
I wonder about the serial number. It seems more logical that 77-728 applies than the number under the pickup... that number really means nothing. Did this bass come with CVQ's and Master Volume, or was it converted? By whom? If it started as a Series II, how would we know, without seeing the neck beam? We'll just have to wait for the lookup on that.
I think we're looking at a project bass from long ago. I just won't beat up on it... a lot of folks just don't have the means or desire to send a messed-up bass back to Alembic for repair, and seek an alternate solution. I'm not advocating for that, just stating it. This could really be a lot worse.
