FENDER CUSTOM COLORS PICKGUARD MISTERY??

[ricca]

Hi, I have a 1969 Jazz Bass candy apple red matching headstock. The pickguard appared to be original and it's a 3 lyers one: white on top,black in the middle and pearloid on back! through the years i found a couple of ads on ebay of similar instruments saying this kind of pickguard were tipical of '60 custom colors jazzes but I found nothing about them on websites or specialized books. Does anyone knows something about?
Thanks

[SurferJoe46]

Lest we forget the (ugly??) rumor of using old floor tiles for fretboard dots, that makes sense in a rather arcane way.

Sounds like someone put a bunch of raw PG material on the stamping machine upside-down and Leo decided it could work if only CBS would leave him alone!

Someday I'd like to take one of those 'clay-dots' and grind it up and see if there's any asbestos fibers in it - the floor tiles at that time period should be asphalt/asbestos. That would solve the mystery.

[johnk_10]

most of the mid 60's telecaster guitars and all of the 68/69 tele basses that i've seen had white pickguards with a pearloid underside.

[SurferJoe46]

Originally Posted by johnk_10

most of the mid 60's telecaster guitars and all of the 68/69 tele basses that i've seen had white pickguards with a pearloid underside.

Makes my case more logical then.

Pearloid is much more expensive to produce and having it on the bottom makes no sense unless it was act of trying to recoup an accident in the PG Stamping Department.

The mid-60's were a big frustration to Leo and I could see it on his face when I visited him once in a while. His personal nether parts were in the CBS vice at the time and I think he was scrambling a lot to just crack the company nut each and every hour by then.

[johnk_10]

IMO, it had nothing to do with Leo's frustration and was simply a matter of wanting white pickguards on certain models and using the stock on hand. they used the same material for the mustang basses and some of the telecaster thinlines with the pearloid face up.

[Sharko]

Who is Mister-Y?

[Dark Horse]

Originally Posted by ricca

Hi, I have a 1969 Jazz Bass candy apple red matching headstock. The pickguard appared to be original and it's a 3 lyers one: white on top,black in the middle and pearloid on back! through the years i found a couple of ads on ebay of similar instruments saying this kind of pickguard were tipical of '60 custom colors jazzes but I found nothing about them on websites or specialized books. Does anyone knows something about?
Thanks

67-69 it is common to have pearloid on the underside of guards...especially in Teles and Tele Basses as mentioned. Fender using what they already had in stock I would guess.

[SurferJoe46]

Originally Posted by johnk_10

IMO, it had nothing to do with Leo's frustration and was simply a matter of wanting white pickguards on certain models and using the stock on hand. they used the same material for the mustang basses and some of the telecaster thinlines with the pearloid face up.

You seem to be forgetting that CBS was tightening the vice on him and since CBS was all bean-counters they were more interested in the bottom line and wouldn't let something like a wrong-cut upside down PG get scrapped. Multiply that times a few thousand (maybe?!?) and that means some serious coin to those kinds of people.

Nah - they had Leo's corns in the fire and they would frustrate him in their penny-pinching ways.

All the Fender line went 'mammaries up' when CBS got their blood-sucking fangs in the company, bled it dry as they could - and left just vital fluids to keep it's heart beating.

I saw Leo quite a few times in those rotten years and you could see the effect it had on him - in his eyes, somewhat bent stance and the smile was gone.

You KNOW pearloid is more expensive and that's a big clue - why put it underneath a plain ol' white PG except for greedy corporate necessity and unwillingness to scrap a few miscued PGs?

[johnk_10]

you're entitled to your take on it Joe, but i still disagree. CBS gave him 13 million dollars for his company, and his health was the reason that he sold it, which might not make him appear as happy and spry as in the earlier years.

personally, i don't know of anyone that had 13 million dollars back in the 60's, that felt that their nether region was being squeezed.

[ricca]

Thanks everybody........



MISTER-Y OR MISTER-X?