Quote:
Originally Posted by Wehner  Can you elaborate a bit? On Fender.com it says: |
They'll give you one if it's an authentic Fender, made by Fender. They don't want to give them out to people who put parts basses together because, for one thing, if it's a P.O.S., it reflects badly on the Fender reputation. Also, some unscrupulous types will try to sell off a parts bass with non-authentic parts as a vintage piece of gear.
But, don't believe me--check for yourself. When you get the neck, do exactly what Fender suggests and see. Or, before you get the neck, contact Fender and ask them.
I'm basing my answer to you, not based on personal experience in trying to get a decal from Fender, but from comments posted by others on this and other forums over the years.
When I reluctantly retired the neck from my 78 Precision and replaced it with a non-Fender neck I determined that the neck was not worth the cost of restoring. It had warped sideways and of course the truss rod won't correct for that. The frets were worn to the point they could no longer be leveled and re-crowned. The neck was unplayable and I wanted this bass for playing. I don't care a bit about whether it's vintage or not. It just has to sound good and play easily. I didn't bother trying to get a Fender decal for the replacement neck because I knew I wouldn't get one from them. It's not a Fender neck. But I found a guy, who, despite me pointing out the fact that the neck was unplayable and would cost a bomb to fix, offered me good money to buy it to put in a parts bass he was putting together and planned to sell. He just wanted that vintage neck with its still intact decal. He said he could probably get a black market decal (there are guys producing faked decals out there) but wanted the real deal. I didn't want any part of a shady sounding scheme like that because in the end some poor bass player who didn't know better would get burned with a bass that would be unplayable. So I gave it to a local instrument restorer who did good work who said he could probably fix it and maybe even make a profit from it eventually. In return he did some work for me on another instrument-work I didn't have the tools or expertise to do myself. It was a good deal for me and hopefully for him.
I still play my 79P with the non Fender neck in public. I don't feel ashamed that it doesn't have a Fender decal. I've refinished the body and it looks good. It sounds great (I also replaced the stock pickup which sounded a bit anemic to me) and that's all I really care about.
