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ULTRA RARE 1984 Warwick "Nobby" 6 String Guitar NO

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by warwickguitar » Wed Jan 14, 2009 11:41 am

Thanks for looking! I have one of approximately 30 Nobby Meidel Guitars ever made. I have #8. It is very clean. It plays great and sounds great. I am accepting offers as of right now as I cannot accurately appraise this item. Please read the background story below and also view the pictures. Feel free to email me any questions or offers. If you are just a fan of rare or vintage guitars we are open to chatting with you as guitars like these come around once in a lifetime. NOTE: I do not have the custom stand that originally came with it and the information plate, which I pictured, came loose- I guess the adhesive they used in 1984 was not that good J.

· This guitar was built in 1984 (exact date is very difficult to find)
· The body is made out of rosewood and maple lamination (2pcs)
· The neck is made of Rosewood and the fretboard is ebony
· It features Bill Lawrence 500 Pickups
· The electronics are passive and were designed by MEC
· It has Schaller machine heads


The Nobby Meidel Story

The Nobby Meidel bass was the first bass built by Warwick. Many of the design features common to all current Warwick's were first developed for this bass. In many ways, the Nobby was Warwick's test bed for all the instruments that followed.

Hans Thomann introduced Nobby Meidel, the former bass sales rep from the Thomann Company, to Hans-Peter Wilfer. The first Warwick model was then designed together with the bassist. This bass, which bore the Nobby Meidel name, was based on the newly popular Steinberger bass, which back then was also already imitated by manufacturer Washburn with the Bantam bass. An essential characteristic was the headstock-less neck and the tuning pegs located at the bottom end of the body.
Nobby Meidel was absolutely pragmatic in the design phase of the new bass: he basically sawed off the headstock and lateral designs of the body to unmistakably make clear how he imagined the ideal headless electric bass. The Warwick boss himself created the hardware design and electronics; he even drew the schematics for the prototype. The brass parts were supplied by metal turner Walter Zeitler from Röslau, the rosewood came from a local lumber dealer, the 3-D bridges from Schaller in the town of Feucht, the pickups from Shadow in the town of Erlangen and the instrument’s finish was done at a specialty shop in the town of Eltersdorf. That’s how shortly thereafter a novel instrument, completely built in the Franconia region of Germany, came to market.

The body is Rosewood and the neck is laminated wenge/rosewood. The original design featured EMG pickups, MEC 2-band electronics and Schaller bridge and tuners. Later units came standard with Schaller pickups, with EMG being an upgrade. The neck features 26 of Warwick's trademark silver bronze alloy frets, also first used in this bass. A total of around 950 were build between Dec. 1982 and 1992. There were also approximately 30 special Nobby Meidel guitars built exclusively for the US. A special stand was designed to hold the instrument.
The only bass on display in Hans Peter's house is a Nobby.


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warwickguitar
 
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Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:08 pm

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