Ok, this is going to be a bit long-winded, but I thought that the more info I posted about the item, the better!
I am a touring professional who has (and still) tours all over the world with various acts. I am a "crew" guy and don't play in a band. I play and collect whatever guitars and basses strike my fancy (mainly 80's Japanese stuff).
I was an employee of a band that was on Motley Crue's "Crue Fest 1" back in 2008. I had a lot of friends on that tour and it was a great and successful tour.
From around 2000 to 2004 Nikki Sixx was in a few different bands before Motley got back full force to tour with the original lineup. He had his bands Brides of Destruction and 58 (and even to this day his other band Sixx Am is still going from about 2006).
Between 2000 and 2003, Gibson made a signature model which you all know called the "Blackbird". It was later re-introduced..I'm not sure of the changes made on later versions, if any.
SO here is where the story starts. I purchased a Blackbird directly from Nikki's bass tech at the time (actually while the tour was still going and we were at a show!). I became good friends with his tech and Nikki was a good friend of the band I worked for (one of our band members was even in one of his other bands with him). I always used to hound them to sell me something since Motley was one of my favorites. A few days before the end of the tour, Nikki's tech comes into our tour bus holding a case. Now mind you this is in front of the band I worked for and others. He informs me that he can sell me a bass that Nikki had that he doesn't use anymore. He used it for some Brides of Destructions shows and maybe a few Motley shows as a backup. He didn't like it. The tech explained to me that when Motley started getting some steam again, Nikki wanted to change a few things up and was dealing with Gibson to do a few changes on the Blackbird. The model he presented he said was a kind of in-between test to see if Nikki wanted to continue on making a new Blackbird model. He didn't want to and Nikki decided to just stick with the regular red or other color Thunderbirds. The Blackbird was dropped from the Gibson lineup in 2003 (until re-issued years later I believe).
SO, what I have here is a Blackbird with some very wrong things to it. The story above all came from the guitar tech. Last year we showed the guitar to the current Motley techs, and they don't know anything about it. The headstock first of all is the "skinny" type and not the usual Blackbird size. It also doesn't have the raised middle section on the body where the wings WOULD be attached to (it's flat as a slab like Nikki's older Spectors). I realized that this thing could be a fake somehow, but the tech that sold it to me did not try to hide or sneak it to me, he bought it to me with plenty of other tour people around and we made the deal.
I also showed it to Nikki's original tech (who is a friend of mine as well) who helped Nikki design the original Blackbird with Gibson and he pointed several things out. He said the fretboard, inlays, pickups, placement of the finger rest and switch, the case, and some other things were definitely real, but the rest looked fake. He wasn't around in the later years when this "supposed prototype" came from Gibson. Why would someone making a fake use real Blackbird parts, fretboard, and case? Anyway, I was distraught. There is even another bridge in the case that the tech said they had swapped out to try something different. Anyway, still a mystery.
I then emailed someone we knew from Gibson to check the serial number and get any info or to see if it was even legit. Gibson actually answered with "While I cannot verify if this was indeed an artist related instrument, I can say that it appears consistent with a 2006 Nikki Sixx Blackbird". The headstock looks nothing like it unless one looks at the 5-string models. Anyway, I'm still baffled. Just throwing this out there to you bass experts to see what you think!
I am a touring professional who has (and still) tours all over the world with various acts. I am a "crew" guy and don't play in a band. I play and collect whatever guitars and basses strike my fancy (mainly 80's Japanese stuff).
I was an employee of a band that was on Motley Crue's "Crue Fest 1" back in 2008. I had a lot of friends on that tour and it was a great and successful tour.
From around 2000 to 2004 Nikki Sixx was in a few different bands before Motley got back full force to tour with the original lineup. He had his bands Brides of Destruction and 58 (and even to this day his other band Sixx Am is still going from about 2006).
Between 2000 and 2003, Gibson made a signature model which you all know called the "Blackbird". It was later re-introduced..I'm not sure of the changes made on later versions, if any.
SO here is where the story starts. I purchased a Blackbird directly from Nikki's bass tech at the time (actually while the tour was still going and we were at a show!). I became good friends with his tech and Nikki was a good friend of the band I worked for (one of our band members was even in one of his other bands with him). I always used to hound them to sell me something since Motley was one of my favorites. A few days before the end of the tour, Nikki's tech comes into our tour bus holding a case. Now mind you this is in front of the band I worked for and others. He informs me that he can sell me a bass that Nikki had that he doesn't use anymore. He used it for some Brides of Destructions shows and maybe a few Motley shows as a backup. He didn't like it. The tech explained to me that when Motley started getting some steam again, Nikki wanted to change a few things up and was dealing with Gibson to do a few changes on the Blackbird. The model he presented he said was a kind of in-between test to see if Nikki wanted to continue on making a new Blackbird model. He didn't want to and Nikki decided to just stick with the regular red or other color Thunderbirds. The Blackbird was dropped from the Gibson lineup in 2003 (until re-issued years later I believe).
SO, what I have here is a Blackbird with some very wrong things to it. The story above all came from the guitar tech. Last year we showed the guitar to the current Motley techs, and they don't know anything about it. The headstock first of all is the "skinny" type and not the usual Blackbird size. It also doesn't have the raised middle section on the body where the wings WOULD be attached to (it's flat as a slab like Nikki's older Spectors). I realized that this thing could be a fake somehow, but the tech that sold it to me did not try to hide or sneak it to me, he bought it to me with plenty of other tour people around and we made the deal.
I also showed it to Nikki's original tech (who is a friend of mine as well) who helped Nikki design the original Blackbird with Gibson and he pointed several things out. He said the fretboard, inlays, pickups, placement of the finger rest and switch, the case, and some other things were definitely real, but the rest looked fake. He wasn't around in the later years when this "supposed prototype" came from Gibson. Why would someone making a fake use real Blackbird parts, fretboard, and case? Anyway, I was distraught. There is even another bridge in the case that the tech said they had swapped out to try something different. Anyway, still a mystery.
I then emailed someone we knew from Gibson to check the serial number and get any info or to see if it was even legit. Gibson actually answered with "While I cannot verify if this was indeed an artist related instrument, I can say that it appears consistent with a 2006 Nikki Sixx Blackbird". The headstock looks nothing like it unless one looks at the 5-string models. Anyway, I'm still baffled. Just throwing this out there to you bass experts to see what you think!
