Question to the OP. I am a very conservative person who never buys anything of any value without seeing it. I also have no idea what it would be like to be able to afford things like this so I hope this question doesn't come off too uptight.
So you decide you're going to make a major financial purchase like this and high quality photos are unable or not offered to be shared from the Builder. And he was also clear the bass was sold in as is condition. Why not just spend the other $700 for a new one or make a weekend out of it just travel to New York City to see it I mean what's plane tickets when you're spending $5,000 on a bass?
Like I said I couldn't fathom spending that kind of money on a base the most I ever spent was 1800 on my upright and there was a lot of basses that I overlooked simply because I couldn't see them. I just don't understand when you have those kind of resources available to yourself how you don't take advantage of them.
I mean no disrespect to my question I simply just don't understand and wish to see it from your point of view I wish you the best of luck!
I'm not sure why you assume I'm wealthy just because I bought a $5K bass.
But... since you're asking... that bass was about 3 months salary for me. I'm a graphic designer at a small private company, not a plastic surgeon.
Things are kind of hazy, but I bought my first bass with my own money on a credit card that had like 30% interest. It was a Stingray for like $1000.
My very first "boutique" bass was a Warwick Thumb bass, which was sold to me at distributor cost through a second tier artist endorsement deal, because the band I was in at the time was "about to break."
I was flat broke and I actually got the money to buy it from a private investor in the band (he was also convinced we would "make it")... I eventually bought it back from him after the band broke up at a depreciated cost and eventually sold it for a nominal profit.
I used that money and the money from the sale of a Stingray and bought a USA Lakland at dealer cost because I was working in a music store at the time. When I moved to where I live now from Chicago, I cashed out my 401K and bought my wife an engagements ring... used the rest of the money to buy a second Lakland.
I traded one Lakland straight across for the Mike Lull M5V that I sold to help finance the A-C... and I sold the other Lakland, an old P-Bass I had aquired through other trades, and a bunch of other stuff to buy the Zon 519 I sold to help fund some of the other half of the A-C.
The remaining balance was put on a credit card.
So... credit cards, being in a popular band a long time ago that had a "hookup", and cashing out my old 401K helped me get on the boutique bass track... it all went downhill from there.
I have never spent this kind of money on anything in my life... I was going purely on my dialogue with Jimmy and what seemed to be a fairly solid reputation online and through people I trust.
If I was a plastic surgeon or a lottery winner and I had been hemorrhaging money from my eyeballs, a quick plane trip on my private jet to LA to check out the bass wouldn't be that out of the question, to be honest.
I wish I could have been in that position.
