Up for sale is my 1973/83 Fender Jazz Bass that I affectionately dubbed the "Tiki Bass." The bass is very unique and it sounds and plays great. Unfortunately, I just don't play it and I'd like to see if she could go to someone who could show her some love and give this bass the playing time it deserves.
The bass is a Fender Jazz which I purchased like this 15 years ago. The body is alder and has had the finish stripped to natural in preparation of the current "finish". If you look closely at the photos you will see a texture to the "finish" because it’s really not a finish at all. The top of the body and the headstock have been covered with cloth cut from a Hawaiian shirt. After the cloth was glued into place the entire body and headstock were sprayed with a clear coat. The bridge, neck plate & screws, pickups, and electronics are all from a 1973 Jazz Bass. The pickups and pots have 1973 date codes and the serial number falls in line with a
1973 serial number.
The neck is from one of the highly prized 1983 Fender Fullerton ’62 Jazz Bass reissues. The neck is dated 11-22-83 and has a slab rosewood fingerboard. Along the way someone gave it a professional “Jaco” treatment and pulled the frets, filled the fret lines with contrasting wood filler, and coated the board with an epoxy. You can see from the photos that the frets we carefully removed and that there aren’t chunks of rosewood missing. The epoxy has a satin finish to it and the fret lines helped me play it since I’m a fretless newbie. I originally thought that the body was a '73 body with all of the electronics and body hardware from '73 but I was informed that the pickup spacing is the earlier 1960's pickup spacing (I guess I never really paid much attention to it). That said, I'm now thinking that the body is the mate to the Fullerton reissue neck. If you look at the bridge pickup you see that it has a copper ground strap from the pickup cavity to the bridge which would have come from the Fullerton reissue bass since they didn’t use them on the ‘70s basses (but the Fullerton Jazz reissues had them). Also, in the photos you can see the brass ground plates in the control and pickup cavities. They didn't use those on the '70s basses to my knowledge. Finally, the neck has a nice tight fit to the pocket like they were matched. I know these observations alone can't confirm my suspicion but I can see that the body is a very nice piece of alder that looks to be older and it doesn't have any kind of markings that indicate its origin.
When I bought the bass, the previous owner told me that the tuners and strap buttons were original pre-CBS Fender from the late ‘50s. I don’t know how to confirm that claim but the “E” tuner does have a number faintly scrawled into the back plate. I’ve never taken the time to read it but I would look at it more closely if anyone cared. I can tell you that I’ve had people look at the tuners when I told them what they were and offer me serious money for them. I never considered yanking them for profit since I didn’t want to mess with the mojo of the bass.
The only thing I've ever done to the bass it that the original bone nut was filed or worn way too low on the A-string slot and it buzzed some when the A-string was played open. I used shim it with a sliver of paper but the nut finally broke at the A-string slot and I had a local tech install and slot a new Micarta nut for it.
The bass weighs 8.25 lbs. on my digital postal scale. It plays and sounds great and it has a nice fretless “growl” to it. It’s strung with Elixir Polyweb roundwound strings. These strings have been on the bass for the last ten years and they still sound like new. Also, the bass includes a cheapo “pleather” gig bag but it will be well packed in a Fender bass shipping carton to ensure its safe arrival at your destination.
I'm offering this unique bass for sale for
$1,300 $1,200 plus actual shipping & insurance. If you have a shipper's account through FedEx or UPS I'll be happy to ship it to you using your account with the understanding that you will be responsible for any potential insurance claims should damage occur in transit.
I've attached a photo to this thread but more photos can be seen HERE. As always, please ask if you have any questions.
NO TRADES!!
