This is on Reverb, after being listed elsewhere for quite a few months.
Can anyone explain why the laminates of the back of the headstock look "flattened out"?
Is it the result of being repaired or refinished?
https://reverb.com/item/37352260-alembic-series-1-short-scale-bass-1979-koa-top-w-original-blue-alembic-case-price-drop?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=37352260 (https://reverb.com/item/37352260-alembic-series-1-short-scale-bass-1979-koa-top-w-original-blue-alembic-case-price-drop?utm_source=rev-ios-app&utm_medium=ios-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=37352260)
It doesn't look like it has been altered to me. Alembics are hand carved, so there can be differences in appearance for the backstrap laminates.
I don't know what you mean by "flattened out"; if you're talking about the neck-to-headstock carve (the only thing I can think of that might be "flattened") it looks perfectly normal to me.
Peter
Thanks for the replies.
It just looked quite different from mine, and there was a change in colour toward the bottom of the headstock that looked like maybe someone had sanded it.
I don't have a picture of the back of my bass's headstock for comparison, but it's more like this.
I'm just not familiar with these basses to know what's typical.
One of the fun things you can see if you take an Alembic tour is someone hand shaping the necks with a file on a nearly finished + $20K bass! I imagine that kind of work is not for the beginners.
Here is one from 1978, you can see how all three in this thread vary.
I think i recall when i did my tour that Mica told me that part of the build varies depending on the style of the individual doing it i may have misunderstood her but that was my take on her explanation