Carvin is cheap, until you factor in the UK part (it pretty much doubles the price).
I'm not a fan of Fender and if I was spending that much I'd get a custom
Sei Bass
That looks like a very nice but expensive bass like Alembic, Smith, or Wal. The local music store near me has a Kurbow bass collector who runs the store, so he has a lot of great custom made basses in the store, and many from the UK very similar to the ones on this site. But we are talking $2K to $4K USD, and up.
I know some of the boutique companies are far better (Pensa Suhr, Vigier, Smith, and Wal), but as for resale and "easily" finding a buyer who will give you as much or more than you paid for your bass, it's probably easier to stick to a big company like a Fender, Gibson, ESP, or Jackson.
I find it unfortunate that the collector's investment grade guitars are almost always mega companies. Some smaller companies do have investment grade guitars like Gretsch Penguins, Gretsch White Falcons, Stromberg archtops, or D'Angelicos/D'Aquistos.
It has to often come down to the question if you want something with a great resale, or something that is very good to play with a great sound. Some investment grade guitars are long in the tooth and may not sound all that great. I was looking at a pretty bashed up New York City era Epiphone archtop
while Epi Stapoupolous was alive and CEO before his brothers took over the company, which is very rare these days, but it wasn't a very good player at all. The Epis right after the brothers took over were still just as good, but the man himself, Epi S., died at a very young age and an Epi S. era Epiphone is akin to an early Apple computer signed by either Steve as only a few were.
I saw a museum piece Steve Jobs signed computer and that thing, like a Fender Custom Shop bass, will only go up in value. If for some reason Fender goes out of business and there is no custom shop, then that bass would skyrocket in value.
On the investment side of such a bass, if it turns out it's a Fender Custom Shop signed and with papers, and Fender goes out of business, which isn't a totally unlikely event these days, then that bass can buy you a mini-cooper in your old age.
