Completely un-associated with the thread, but your avatar GIF has just reminded me of what an ex-GF did to my new, early Fender Custom Shop Fretless jazz bass. Exactly that same move. The crack in the heel finish thankfully never went through to the wood.
Spotted that. I guy at my work got gifted an engraver by his daughter. He's already done some impressive stuff with it. I bet PCGsGC will be dead envious if he sees that auction!
Saw that. Probably a good idea, but, yeh, it's a mod. If I was interested, I'd ask to see the tailpiece side-on, but am not going to waste the guy's time.
Most of the Rick basses I had had ok necks, my favour being a 'shouldered' 1973 4001 . I also had a V63 which was a dream to look at, and sounded amazing, but the neck was like a baseball bat so it got moved on.
This has been up for a while, and I'm sure he's increased the stated price in the header yet is asking over £1K in the description. I think he's trolling, getting off on the replies.
Shafto 4001
Definitely an '80s thing, which I reckon this bass is. Alembic and JD certainly used XLR. My guess is the XLR was installed to activate the battery, but that could have been done via jack socket.