Expensive Bass Porn
A Las Vegas jeweler is selling this particular custom-made instrument for $250,000. The original story is accompanied by a graphic explaining the fine detail of the bass, ranging from a body formed from a single piece of quilted maple (nice touch) to several 24K gold inlays (superfluous) to diamonds in the knobs and a nut made of Siberian mammoth tusk (you must be joking).
My favorite part, though, is the explanation of the brass frets. It was a structural consideration, as gold would be too soft for playing, and brass was necessary to stand up to the strings. I find it quite hard to believe that this won’t end up in a display case somewhere, untouched by playing hands for years at a time.
Also, the new IMN podcast is up - download it here or listen at the site.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Yes, yes, very pretty. But does is RAWK?
At least it has multiple uses. In a decade or so, you can take a scraping from the nut and clone yerself a mammoth.
Heh… I said “scraping from the nut.”
August 1st, 2008 at 9:34 am
I’m not sure if such a bass is supposed to rawk. Rawk, to me, implies a southern boogie sort of rock, which would be most inappropriate. Tobacco juice ruins the finish. I think this is more likely to burble forth smooth jazz or fuzak, honestly. Really expensive smooth jazz or fuzak.
I’m all for the mammoth cloning, though.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
If you’re considering buying this, you have too much money.
Just because you can, dosen’t mean you should.
I love my $400 Fender Std. Mex. bass, and Danelectros are pretty groovy too.
However, Yea mammoth cloning.
Two votes for that. One for me and one for Evan (my 4 year old) Mammoths ROCK.