selling my merchant vertical...i love it but i just don't use it enough to justify keeping it (i'm HEAVILY favoring my URB these days, for which i need to finance some setup work and a pickup/mic), so i'm hoping it goes to a good home
asking $1300
there's no serial number on it which, Bill Merchant says, means it's one of the first 100 he made. I had Bill look at it when I first bought it because one of the mag pups wasn't working and there was a scary looking crack at the heel of the neck. The crack was pronounced non-structural (ie. it's only in the finish), and since I tend to favor the underwood (at least i think it's an underwood, i remember bill mentioning something about that during our visit) pups anyway, I never bothered replacing the dead mag pup (the GD side pup) but I assume it's fairly trivial to do if you're into mag pups on an EUB. It's got an onboard preamp (you can see in the pix affixed to the body under the fingerboard) and, during my visit with Bill, I learned that he no longer offers this particular preamp. it was, he felt, the best sounding option but was hand-wired and prohibitively expensive to continue offering. I also had him recondition the bridge during that visit (maybe 2-3 years ago or so). I've fashioned a t-bar for the peg to help stability when bowing...it's a little homemade looking, but it's stable and unscrews from the peg if you want to put a more traditional rubber stop on. it also includes the flight case which, new, is an extra $600 option.
it sounds great and plays like a DB should, it feels (both arco and pizz) more like an URB than any other EUB i've played.
old TB review:
Bill Merchant EUB megathread
Bill Merchant's page:
http://merchantbass.com summary
good:
very good URB-like sound and feel
great pre-amp
includes flight case
bad:
finish issue at the heel of the neck
dead mag pup on the GD side
location:
i'm in jersey city, nj...about a 10-15 minute walk from the journal square PATH stop (a cab to my house from jsq is about 5 bux). i'd prefer a local pickup, but am willing to arrange shipping if you're paying! i can probably arrange delivery depending on your location, ask me about it
pic (click the link below for more images):
more pictures
edit:
i've also got an Alembic Epic up for sale
here (pix are dead in the original post, there's pix of it in the same gallery as the merchant above), if anyone's got money to burn these days, i'll do em both for $2700. as for trades, i'm looking for a 2008 american standard precision, a decent student-level german bow (trading up from an upton $99), and/or an ipod nano chromatic or ipod touch...will need cash as well but i'm willing to work deals
