32,000 Year Old Bass Built for Charity

(Click for a close-up)

Close up of 12th fret mark

Stuart Spector Designs has just completed a bass, the NS-30K BC that will utilize what is believed to be the oldest wood ever used in the construction of a musical instrument. Obtained by Spector from logs discovered buried 40 feet deep in a sand quarry in Georgia, USA, the wood is perfectly preserved, due to the sterile nature of the sand and the natural decay resistance of the cypress wood itself. Using carbon 14 testing techniques, samples of the wood were examined by Beta Analytics, in Miami, to check for radioactive decay in the small amount of carbon that is present in all living organisms.

Astonishingly, results revealed the timber is 31,970 years old, plus or minus 570 years from the time the tree was originally felled, while the tree itself may have been as much as 1,000 years old at the time a storm blew it down. At present, Spector plans to produce just one instrument from this wood, a 4 string bass in the classic Spector NS curved body style.

Ornamentation on the NS-30K BC will be a 12th fret marker made from fossil mastodon ivory, fashioned in the shape of a mastodon (extinct elephant-like creature), cut, inlaid, and hand engraved by master inlay artist, Larry Robinson.

The completed instrument can be seen at the Spector booth, during the forthcoming NAMM show, held between July 20th-22nd at the Nashville Convention Centre. Estimated selling price of the bass is expected to be $20,000, with the full profit from the sale going to the World Wildlife Fund.