Alembic Tribute Jerry Garcia "Tiger" 8th Ever Built 2001

For your consideration, we present one of the very first Alembic Tributes ever produced.

Verified from our contact at Alembic, this Tribute was finished on December 13th, 2001, and is documented as the 8th Jerry Garcia "Tiger" Tribute. This guitar has stayed in the Bay Area its entire life, having been sold originally at Guitar Showcase in San Jose. The story on this instrument is that the original buyer changed their mind about the neck profile on this particular example, thus making #8 available for purchase.

If you are looking at this listing, you know how extremely rare these guitars are and how seldom these guitars come to market. This stunning example will not last long in our shop.

Own the Jerry guitar of your dreams. This one is a Scarlet Begonias fantasy incarnate.

paraphrased from frettedamericana.com:

Modeled after Jerry Garcia's "Tiger" guitar. This Alembic "Tribute" was made in December 2001. Seven-layer highly figured hand-carved 'sandwich' of 'Premium' Coco Bolo, Maple, Vermilion, Flame Maple, Vermilion, Maple and Coco Bolo. Five-piece neck of Western Flame Maple with Purpleheart and Cherry. The neck has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a thin-to-medium profile. Ebony fretboard with 24 jumbo frets and inlaid oval 'Mother-of-Pearl' position markers. Height-adjustable solid brass nut. Alembic 'Crown' ebony faced headstock with sterling silver inlaid logo of abalone and 'Mother-of-Pearl'. Individual Gold-plated Alembic Gotoh 'Rotomatic' style tuners. Alembic STR (single-coil) pickup in the neck position and two Alembic HG (humbuckers) in the middle and bridge position. Rotary master volume, rotary filter for each pickup plus three individual three-way (off/on/bright) mini-toggle switches (one for each pickup and a two-way mini-toggle switch (on/off) for the TRS effects loop. Black plastic control knobs with ribbed sides and triangular white markers. Alembic brass bridge assembly with six individually adjustable brass saddles and ebony and brass 'bird' tailpiece with three screws.

The Alembic Tribute guitar is a nod to the “Tiger” guitar originally made for Jerry Garcia by Doug Irwin and Thomas Lieber. Alembic is famous for inventing active pickups and changed the way many bass guitars are now built. The Alembic Tribute guitar includes active pickups as well and in addition Alembic has made some improvements on the guitar that take it beyond the “Tiger” guitar. The guitar has an incredible 27 different pickup settings with a separate tone control for each pickup. Also included in the guitar is a on-board effects loop switch that allows you to remotely switch effects on and off.

Alembic pickups are "hand" wound by the Wickersham grandparents in California and are supposed to reproduce the "acoustic" sound of the bass with no coloration. Because these pickups are low impedance they require a specially designed preamp circuit from Alembic, these circuits are modular in design with solderless connectors. (Meaning you can keep adding tone modules a la Series II.) The circuits use the best components available and are extremely quiet.

Cocobolo Top and Back

Maple/Vermillion/Flamed Maple "Hippie Sandwich" Body

Gloss Polyurethane Finish

5-piece Western Flamed Maple/cherry/Purpleheart Neck

Dual Truss Rods

Ebony Fingerboard & Headstock Face

Pearl Oval Inlays & Silver/Shell Alembic Crown Logo

"Slim C" Neck Profile

2x Alembic HG, 1x Alembic STR Pickups

Alembic Brass Bridge & Nut

Alembic Brass & Ebony Bird Tailpiece

Gotoh Tuning Machines

1x Vol, 3x Tone with Adjustable Gain

3x Mini Toggles for Off-On-Bright on each pickup

2-way Mini Toggle for Onboard Effects Loop

25.5" Scale

12" Radius

1.645 Nut Width

8.9 lbs

This guitar is in Very-Good-to Excellent condition, showing signs of light use, slight modification, and very careful storage. At some point in its life, it appears that someone mounted a Roland-style Midi pickup to the instrument. A piece of fabric tape currently covers the mounting holes from the previous midi pickup installation. There is pickwear on the front on the treble side, which is only evident when held to the light. The pickup covers show some minor wear and some foil loss on the Alembic logos. There are some minor impressions in the elbow area along the edge on the bass side. The brass backplate shows some minor scratches and there are some minor scratches on the reverse of the body, which are difficult to see unless held to the light. There is a small stand impression on the reverse of the neck at the first fret, which is nearly-imperceptible to the touch and visible when held to the light. All of the brass hardware is moderately tarnished with age and playwear, with heavier tarnish on the bridge. This instrument was recently set-up by our expert tech and restrung with a set of D'Addario NYXL 10's for optimum brightness. This package includes a hard case and a set of gold Schaller straplocks. Should you require any additional photos of this instrument, please reach out to us directly via Reverb. This instrument is is being sold AS-IS.