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The World's Weirdest Steinberger:  the prototype XM2A-fretted/fretless!

(From SteinbergerWorld.com):

This bass came up for sale on eBay way back in '98 and we've not seen it since. Luckily a Yahoo! Groups member saved the auction photos though they do lack a little in quality.

This one-of-a-kind prototype combination fretted / fretless bass neck was fitted on a white XM2 bass body. The knob on the end of the neck lowers the frets for fretless playing. We're curious how well this option worked, as we can imagine the frets not coming back and being totally level. This would lead to buzzing and inconsistent play. And we don't even want to think of what a refret would involve! 

I honestly can't imagine what this would involve, and I'm a guitarmaker!  I find it hard to believe that this could even have worked.

When originally asked, Ned himself remembered nothing of this prototype. More recently another Newburgh staffer recalled it being a one-of-a-kind experiment, created shortly after the Gibson sale. He added that although the operation was ingenious, the neck was mostly hollow to accommodate the fret loading mechanism. This made the neck very light, but more importantly very "weak and dead sounding". It remains a novel approach to an interesting idea.

No.  This is a very bad idea.  I understand why someone might think that it could be a good idea, but it just isn't.  And I shudder to think what it cost to build this - just to toss out a number, I'm sure this cost Steinberger/Gibson well over $100,000, when you factor in design, custom tooling, and all the rest of it.  

The "fretknob"...raises and lowers the frets.

Frets down!

Frets up!

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