Don't see many Series 1's for sale in Canada. Missing the plate above the neck pickup and the headstock looks to have been repaired, though there's no mention of either in the listing.
If that's the case, $12 000 cad or $8500 usd seems a bit steep.
https://reverb.com/ca/item/99528570-1977-alembic-series-1-natural
Nice-looking bass. I see what looks like a split in the outer headstock veneer from a couple of the screws of the tuning machines. Nothing structurally troublesome there. It probably got dry. The missing truss-rod cover wouldn't be hard to replace. This bass may not have had one to start with... my '77 didn't, but it was early in the year. The extra useless strap button on the neck heel is unfortunate. Bonus points for what I think is a purpleheart fingerboard.
It looks like a pretty straight instrument without plugging it in and trying. I see they included a shot of 'the book value' at $7k. I say good luck, and mean it. I wish they fetched that much secondhand. Maybe they do in Canada. (?)
The back of the headstock looks a bit weird, like it's glued or something? I might be wrong. And also some (laquer?) cracks there.
Quote from: Barend on Today at 05:25:12 AMThe back of the headstock looks a bit weird, like it's glued or something? I might be wrong. And also some (laquer?) cracks there.
Yeah I see that. Really hard to zoom in, but between the zebrawood layers. Mystery glue. That's a shame. Probably stable but they can forget about the top-dollar price.
There were two of these for sale last year without power supply for around $6,500.00 on Reverb. One sat for 5 months. And no cracked headstocks.
There's a decent looking 1979 in mahogany with a nice-looking maple top that's been languishing on Talkbass for the last year at $6,800 that looks like a better bet than this one.
Vintage and used Alembic pricing is fascinating/anomalous.