My new old Corvette fretless!

Frikkn

Frikkn

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Hey guys!

I'd like to present the latest addition to my little Warwick collection, a beautiful '95 Corvette 5 String Fretless! The 48-hour wait for the courier was TORTURE, nevermind the days of watching it on eBay like a HAWK for about a week. It had over 20 watchers and in the end I was the only one that bid, their loss for sure! By the way this baby is 17 years old and still looks phenomenal, got a few tiny sratches on the back from a belt I guess but hardly noticeable. I personally can't tell that this bass is several years older than my '01 FNA Jazzman and '02 Corvette...

Pricetag, £550... Bargain I say! Plus I've been wanting to get into fretless playing for years (got a very lowend 4 string fretless but it didn't quite cut it) so this was the perfect oportunity for me 8:

I'd also like to clear up some confusion regarding the woods, maybe someone with a more trained eye than me can identify them, sorry about the half-arsed pictures, I only own the camera in my phone :(

As far as I can tell the fretboard should be ebony, it's pitch black and in beautiful condition. The body seems like Bubinga Pomele possibly? Maple neck with rosewood stripes? Those are just my personal guesses...

Also Serial number: K-026964-95

This turned into a much longer post than anticipated. Now let the pictures talk :lol:

Peace
 
Actually that's Bubinga stripes, Herbie's Fretless Streamer has the same neck like your Proline. I don't know why Warwick stopped making these necks, I played an Ibanez NT with the same neck woods and that was a sweet bass... for under a grand. So, I think you got a good deal. I think its hard to find an unlined fretless 5 or 6 string Corvette. Awesome catch!
 
Don't think I've seen bubinga stripes before. That neck looks and feels just awesome though. Do you think my guess on the rest of the woods is accurate? I thought I read somewhere you can tell by the serial number too but I have no idea... I'm glad it's unlined, I played a lined fretless once and didn't like it at all, I'm used to the inlay-less Warwick necks :P

BTW It was advertised as a Proline but I always presumed the Prolines all had the stacked pots. Does the striped neck mean Proline then?
 
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I'm not sure, I've only seen these necks on Streamer BOs and Fortress basses. I'm much of an expect on these maple/bubinga neck basses. I believe they were early 90s basses.
 
Nice bass man, love the neck n it. I recon the body is probably just a very nice peice of ordinary bubinga, the pomelle stuff tends to have more round and circular grain patterns in it. Make little or no diff to the sound, and that thing looks awesome!
 
Thanks man! I thought straight forward bubinga too at first, but then looked at my 4 string bubinga Corvette and every single grain is perfectly straight and on the Fretless its kinda like a snake, waves if you know what I mean.

I just want to know for sure, out of pure interest if anything. I wana know what I'm playing on :P
 
Beautiful bass! I think the body is straight up Bubinga - it's common to have some waves in it. Pomele has a much more intricate grain in my opinion.

;)
 
I don't really know anything about the older basses but I would think that's a Corvette standard bc the Prolines came with a flame maple body rather then Bubinga like the standards... unless that's the way they came back then. I just think it's real easy to swap a name plate.
 
The corvette proline had more configurations :-) Mine was with maple body - maple neck.
 
Oh, ok. I wonder why they had so many different versions and then eventually discontinued it.
 
P.S. At this point I form my answers on the forum so there's gaps to be filled in by someone that knows all of the details rather then some of the details like me.... and I usually assume it's going to be you Florin... and it usually is.
 
Hi Adrian,

IIRC, the corvette proline apeared in 94, and judging from the first catalogs I've seen it was swamp ash body - wenge neck. Then about 95 it was with maple body and maple neck, then we created the simple corvette STD, ash and bubinga, and we upgraded the Corvette Proline with Flamed Maple body, and ovankol neck, and that was the final configuration.

Of course, some basses were Custom SHop orders, or SPecial edition orders for shops, etc etc, so that's why we have so different models. This was part of our evolution :-)

Your bubinga/ maple bass looks more like a special order, at that time it was ovankol as standard for neck.
 
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