Cheesy publicity photos notwithstanding (Let's face it, wouldn't you rather look at these than a picture of Lemmy holding a Rick?
), the bass in the photos is, in fact, mine and arrived yesterday afternoon. Amazingly, it shipped on Monday from Australia and arrived on Wednesday! Incredibly fast shipping.
I plan on posting a full review later this week. Overall, I'm pleased, and I think these are a great deal given their price (even with shipping included), though there are a couple of things that urk me a bit. I went for a natural finish, which aesthetically does look beautiful in person, but the bass body was constructed from 3 pieces of basswood and I wish the upper heel wood used was a better match to the rest of the body, as it's a darker wood than the rest of the woods. You can see it in the photos, and also looking at a natural Explorer guitar that Gaskell also sells, I see a similar issue on that one as well (
http://www.gaskellguitars.com/models/79.html). I've seen it on some Epiphone Explorers too,
http://media.photobucket.com/image/epiphone%20explorer%20bass/Freuds_cat/Epi-Explorer/Epi-exporer2.jpg, but I've also seen perfectly smooth transition ones too. I don't know if I should bother mentioning it to Gaskell or not.
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