This is a rare and beautiful F bass BN-4 built in 1996. The body has a flame maple center block with alder wings, the neck is laminated from 5 pieces of wood - flame maple, wenge, and mahogany. The fingerboard is Macassar ebony, it gives the bass some brightness but it's deeper sounding than a maple board. The neck is just under 1-5/8" wide at the nut.
The pickups are the wonderful split-coil humbuckers they used in the 1990's - great full tone and no hum. The controls are neck vol, bridge vol, passive tone/active passive push/pull switch, and the three by the body edge are treble/mid/bass preamp controls.
You can see from the pics that this bass was loved and gigged regularly, there are plenty of scrapes and chips in the finish. The wood pickup covers have lots of wear through the finish and there are small holes between the pickups for thumbrests, some are filled, two are not.
The previous owner had modified it for narrow string spacing with black hardware, I had Mike Lull put on new chrome hardware that matches F Bass factory parts and a new bone nut to the normal BN-4 specs.
This bass isn't for a collector but it plays and sounds awesome. The extra features on this bass would cost over $5000 if you were to buy one like this new from F Bass today. Weight is lower than most BN-4s at 8.3 lbs, balance is perfect on a strap or seated. The body contours and neck profile are very comfortable, this is an easy bass to play. Comes in a nice black tolex TKL hardcase that has some wear but is fully functional. The center bar that the pocket lid connects to rotates when you open the pocket so that might need to be repaired.
