Even the best luthiers have their off-days...

[molan]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1376785767' post='2179207']


Barrie - surely you arent telling me that the purchaser of this bass routed the horn like that.. then went to the trouble of refinishing it?

The superglue would have cleaned up easy. Whether it was put there or not be JC, I cant believe it would have left the JC workshop without the glue being removed.

All very odd.
[/quote]

I'm not suggesting anything - I just wondered whether people would think a builder would be in the wrong if something was damaged after it had left his workshop.

By complete chance this has actually happened to me personally. Something was sent out in perfect condition, a buyer tinkered with it and caused some problems.

He then said it was faulty when it arrived and asked for his money back. What made it worse was that he said it was faulty when I sent it and that I had deliberately misrepresented it when I put it up for sale.

I took it back without getting involved in a protracted wrangle because it seemed easier and then had to pay to have the damage rectified.

With hindsight I guess I could have publicly 'outed' the person but he was quite belligerent and we could have got into a 'he said / she said' type argument which seemed pretty pointless.

[BigRedX]

Molan, in the end you did the safest (even if it wasn't technically the "right") thing. You can never win with a customer like that and it's unfortunately best if you simply cancel the transaction and then make sure you never deal with them again.

I think the lessons learned from this are:

If you are luthier don't allow anything that you are not 100% happy with leave your workshop.
If you must make a rush job in time for a trade show which ends up with flaws, then ensure it doesn't get sold and afterwards take it back and either make it right or scrap it.

Irrespective of what the buyer may or may not have done with the bass there are major flaws on it that are obviously neither player wear or buyer inflicted.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376811044' post='2179262']


I'm not suggesting anything - I just wondered whether people would think a builder would be in the wrong if something was damaged after it had left his workshop.

By complete chance this has actually happened to me personally. Something was sent out in perfect condition, a buyer tinkered with it and caused some problems.

He then said it was faulty when it arrived and asked for his money back. What made it worse was that he said it was faulty when I sent it and that I had deliberately misrepresented it when I put it up for sale.

I took it back without getting involved in a protracted wrangle because it seemed easier and then had to pay to have the damage rectified.
[/quote]

Absolutely not. What was the fault?!

[Stacker]

[quote name='pobrien_ie' timestamp='1376379145' post='2172906']
Worst attempt at damage limitation I've ever seen.

My favourite quote of the thread: "....the professional luthier's attempt to reverse blame and his complete disregard for paragraph structure don't do him any favors, imo."
[/quote]

Mine was '...played it in front of me, like a man..'. I just love that gallus, non-relevant comment!

[risingson]

[quote name='Stacker' timestamp='1376823429' post='2179429']
Mine was '...played it in front of me, like a man..'. I just love that gallus, non-relevant comment!
[/quote]

That was pretty backhanded. If nothing else the response is definitely an exercise in bad PR.

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376777440' post='2179111']
Hypothetically speaking. . .

If I buy a bass that's been used and shows obvious wear marks that the builder tells me about, then I fiddle around with it and make it significantly worse, does that mean the guy who sold it to me is completely in the wrong and shouldn't have sold it to me in the first place?
[/quote]
So this isn't about this bass then? I'd let this thread die out rather than re stoking it again if you want to help jc out.

Edited August 18, 2013 by stingrayPete1977

[Stacker]

Sorry, I'm feeling rather mischievous and can't resist it....

[Gust0o]

"The customer is always right, even when they are wrong" - a bit of common sense, long-established business best practice and Lean consumption.

[4000]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1376785767' post='2179207']
Barrie - surely you arent telling me that the purchaser of this bass routed the horn like that.. then went to the trouble of refinishing it?

The superglue would have cleaned up easy. Whether it was put there or not be JC, I cant believe it would have left the JC workshop without the glue being removed.

All very odd.
[/quote]

I remember playing the well-known blue GB Rumour that Bernie threw together from bits once upon a time. To this day its my favourite GB that I've ever played. At the time I offered to buy it but he wouldn't sell it, saying something to the effect that if anyone ever stripped it it could reflect badly on him. Apparently I was one in a long line of people who wanted it (one of which, strangely, was Flea). He refused to sell it every time, so I believe.

Edited August 18, 2013 by 4000

[BigRedX]

[quote name='4000' timestamp='1376847054' post='2179887']
I remember playing the well-known blue GB Rumour that Bernie threw together from bits once upon a time. To this day its my favourite GB that I've ever played. At the time I offered to buy it but he wouldn't sell it, saying something to the effect that if anyone ever stripped it it could reflect badly on him. Apparently I was one in a long line of people who wanted it (one of which, strangely, was Flea). He refused to sell it every time, so I believe.
[/quote]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1376484745' post='2174599']
Indeed. One of my fave luthiers has a bass that I am desperate that he sell to me. He won't.

Why?

Well, it's his show bass.

And?

Well... it's built out of a load of sh1tty offcuts that have been glued together and then shaped and sprayed.

I don't care. I just want to play it!

Well... if that bass was ever sold, and it was ever refinished and it was seen that it was made with a load of offcuts, it would bring into question every other bass he had ever made. He's confident that any other bass could be refinished.... but he won't let this show bass out for this very reason, despite having been offered thousands for it by numerous people.

And that's defending your brand.
[/quote]

It appears that there are several Basschatters lusting after this particular bass!

[stingrayPete1977]

I know of it too, not sure if I have played it? Have I played it Russ?

Edited August 18, 2013 by stingrayPete1977

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376777440' post='2179111']Hypothetically speaking. . .

If I buy a bass that's been used and shows obvious wear marks that the builder tells me about, then I fiddle around with it and make it significantly worse, does that mean the guy who sold it to me is completely in the wrong and shouldn't have sold it to me in the first place?[/quote]

I don't think that's a scenario relevant to this buyer's situation, unless the buyer - having spent five grand on this bass - then decided to take it into his workshop and make some changes to the body shape. This seems pretty unlikely.

Unless you're saying that the terrible work on the back of the body was 'obvious wear marks'. In which case, I say 'Haha, good one'.

[molan]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1376857996' post='2180112']


I don't think that's a scenario relevant to this buyer's situation, unless the buyer - having spent five grand on this bass - then decided to take it into his workshop and make some changes to the body shape. This seems pretty unlikely.

Unless you're saying that the terrible work on the back of the body was 'obvious wear marks'. In which case, I say 'Haha, good one'.
[/quote]

And I think my question is directly relevant to this scenario - and, by definition that there are two sides to every story.

Of course, your interpretation of the events and the exact sequence in which they occurred is probably based on a greater knowledge of the facts than anything I've found out. . .

[thisnameistaken]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376862815' post='2180188']Of course, your interpretation of the events and the exact sequence in which they occurred is probably based on a greater knowledge of the facts than anything I've found out. . .[/quote]

No it's simply based on the principle of Occam's Razor. We know that one person took tools to that body to shape it, where the apologists (yourself, maybe some other people? Mostly yourself) seem to be suggesting that more than one person has shaped the body because Jimmy Coppolo couldn't possibly have done such a bad job.

I say 'suggesting' because the apologists are very quick to clarify that they are not making any assumptions or statements about what happened. It seems an exercise in talking a lot while saying nothing.

[molan]

All I, and others are saying is that there are often two sides to every story.

Some people seem to find it difficult to accept this and believe information gleaned from a web forum must be correct.

I've gone to the trouble of speaking directly to one of the parties involved and have picked up first hand knowledge of some of the events discussed.

This has lead me to believe that there is much more to this tale if woe than has been made publicly available.

A lot of people clearly have no interest in this. I can completely understand this, after all, it's much more fun taking shots at someone with a, previously fine reputation than accepting there may be an alternative story.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376898385' post='2180366']
All I, and others are saying is that there are often two sides to every story.
[/quote]

Absolutely. There are [i]always[/i] two sides to every story.

Since this whole tale kicked off, I've been trying to refrain from making any judgement in my own mind until I heard JC's POV.

All I've got to go on so far is an overly-defensive and sarcastic response from him, which doesn't help.

[Muzz]

All I'm going off is the aggressive, ranting response from the supplier himself, nothing else. No matter what's gone on and what hasn't (and there are three sides to every story), that was a shocker.

Even if I was in the market for a posh Jazz (and I'm not), a display of customer services like that would put me off a supplier completely.

[neepheid]

Is this still rumbling along? I can't abide threads like this. Apart from the irrelevance (only vaguely aware of the brand and the guy and will never buy one of his basses so basically I don't care) it's 17 pages (and counting) of cyclic argument and reminds me of just about every thread on TB. Too long and too full of puffed up opinionated antagonism.

[stingrayPete1977]

Either Molan should say the buyer messed with it himself or should refrain from posting more fuel IMO. Your not helping your mate out at all with these cryptic posts

Edited August 19, 2013 by stingrayPete1977

[molan]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1376899420' post='2180373']


Absolutely. There are [i]always[/i] two sides to every story.

Since this whole tale kicked off, I've been trying to refrain from making any judgement in my own mind until I heard JC's POV.

All I've got to go on so far is an overly-defensive and sarcastic response from him, which doesn't help.
[/quote]

Jimmy is a passionate guy - I think anyone who's ever met him would agree with this.

He wears his heart on his sleeve and writes the way he speaks.

I've had a lot of communication with him over the past 2-3 years and all of his emails are a little like his TalkBass response. He just writes stuff down as it comes out of his head and hits the send/post button.

He's clearly not happy with the representation of events as put, very eloquently, before the denizens of TalkBass.

However, my understanding is that he feels there's nothing further to be gained on his part by getting involved in a fractious, and very public, debate.

Given the vitriol and bile directed at him I can certainly see where he's coming from. Were he to put a more detailed explanation of his side of the story out there I'm pretty sure a lot of people would continue to condemn him - after all, just look at the abuse he got on TalkBass before he even knew that the other party had publicly posted stuff - something like 38 pages worth I think.

The fact that there's 17 pages worth of thread here, much of which continues the condemnation or hotly disputes there can be another side to this story, pretty much demonstrates that a lot of people aren't going to believe anything he says either.

Of course, none of us are ever likely to know exactly what happened here and both parties are obviously disputing the other's version of events.

I can't see Jimmy deciding to say a lot more in the public domain now - but I've been wrong before

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1376900135' post='2180384']
Either Molan should say the buyer messed with it himself or should refrain from posting more fuel IMO. Your not helping your mate out at all with these cryptic posts
[/quote]

With apologies to Barrie, I have to agree.

The OP gave his side of the story in a reasoned manner, with a lot of supporting info. Some people put a lot of faith in that, drew conclusions, and have been chided for it.

Following a sarcastic, over-defensive rant from the other party, it's now being suggested via someone else that the OP tinkered with the bass somehow.

The people who got chided for the former are hardly going to buy into the latter, are they?

it's worse than ever.

[LukeFRC]

still going?
The bass is crap, both lutheir and buyer made mistakes.
If you want a AC bass talk to molan and buy it via the shop he works in.
go and play said bass, or just your bass.

or we could add another 18 pages...

[Clarky]

Back from hols so just speed read this. All I can add is that I have owned two ACs in the past (the Willie Weeks one and an LG4 Jazz-type) and both were stunning instruments. I am also aware that JC has, at least on one occasion, sent out a sub-standard bass when under pressure to produce for a trade show. Its the risk of a small operation which - as the maxim goes - should remind all to try before buying wherever possible. It would be a shame if this were to permanently stain the reputation of a very talented luthier who has hundreds of happy customers

[JTUK]

If it were me, I'd get the bass back... refurb it for the customer so it befits the name and hand it back to him..OR refund, do same with bass and sell again.

I wouldn't want a 'sub-standard' example out there that had passed through my ( the shop's ) hands with my name on it.
The refurb will take time and therefore money but it will restore faith etc etc ..and in 2-3 months it will all be forgotten.

If this was handled ok..then the buyer could publish that all is well in the world and we are passed the whole saga.

[Conan]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1376898385' post='2180366']
All I, and others are saying is that there are often two sides to every story.
I've gone to the trouble of speaking directly to one of the parties involved and have picked up first hand knowledge of some of the events discussed.

[/quote]

Then please share this inside information with us instead of making thinly-veiled references to it via hypothetical examples. Did the buyer do something to worsen (or inflict) some of the damage we have seen in the photographs? That seems to be what you are implying. If not, I can't see where this is going

Edited August 19, 2013 by Conan