Alphonso Johnson rare Ibby 924

[NikNik]

Is it a 924? I had the pearl white fella and that was a 924 but this one might have had a different designation.  Anyway,  check it out.

 

Alphonso Ibby

[NikNik]

Err....just tested the link and I get am error. TBF, the link is from 2006 on the Ibby Collectors forum. Anyway,  here's a screen-grab from they moby....

 

[LeftyJ]

Alphonso Johnson had a signature model, the AJ-10. Just a few were made, and he doesn't own his anymore because he hated the playability of the fretless part. Due to the frets, he couldn't get the action low enough for comfortable fretless playing from the 12th fret up. 

[Misdee]

I remember half- fretless basses from around the time I started playing in the late 70s/very early 80. Probably saw them in the Ibanez catalogue and the Kramer catalogue too(  for those too young to remember,back in those days before the internet, we had catalogues.)  Come to think of it, I also remember an Ibanez poster in a local guitar shop featuring Alphonso Johnson. Who no one round our way had ever heard of. Still never seen a half fretless bass in the flesh. 

 

Probably a good thing these basses never caught on, not least of all because if you were selling one  on Basschat you would  invariably get comments saying " if only the top half/ bottom half was fretless I would snap this up."

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Misdee