How common were maple fretboards and blocked necks on 60s Fender Js?

[Diesel Kilgore]

Seems like many vintage jazz basses I have seen have blocked necks whether maple or rosewood fretboards. Every maple boarded jazz neck I have seen from that era has been blocked also. Was this the norm for jazzes? Did any of that era come with plain regular dotted boards in rosewood or maple. Ive always understood it that maple boards were custom order items. I may be wrong.

Just trying to expand my vintage knowledge. I would actually be excited to see a plain dotted maple board on a 60s jazz. But I dont know if that was even an option.

[MysticMichael]

I don't know how common maple fretboards were on the Fender Jazz during the Sixties, though I do recall seeing a lot more rosewood boards on instruments from that period.

As to the blocks vs. dots issue, IIRC blocks & binding on the boards didn't become standard on the Fender Jazz until the early Seventies. Perhaps around 1971 or 1972?

MM

[tbplayer59]

Are blocked necks always bound?

[bassie12]

Actually, all Jazz basses before 1966 were dots. Binding came in '65 or '66, followed by blocks. When blocks came in on Js, dots were gone until the early 80s. I think the earliest maple boards on Jazz basses were 71-72.

[fretlessman71]

Originally Posted by tbplayer59

Are blocked necks always bound?

The old Fenders were. Recently they've released a few basses with blocks that don't have the binding, but the vintage ones IIRC were always bound if they were blocked.

[Diesel Kilgore]

Wow. No maple boards before 71 or 72. Fender CS has the 64 RI with a dotted rosewood board and it looked strange. Guess I need to look at more early jazzes

[Mr.Fingers]

Not completely true. From 1966 onwards the "maple cap" neck was available at custom order (and at an extra cost). You can see those "maple cap" necks more often on the guitars (The black telecaster Dylan used in the 1966 tour with The Hawks/The band, The Hendrix Woodstockcaster,...), but on bass they are not that commonly found. I know Roger Glover had a maple cap P-bass, but that's just it (apart from Entwistles slab-basses)

I saw one 1968 Jazz Bass with a maple cap, but that was a long time ago, so I guess there weren't many made, since it was truly a custom-order. As for the blocking. Since the maple cap was only available from the 2nd half of 1966, they were always blocked, since the blocks & binding were also introduced in the summer of 1966. This is only true for the "deluxe models" (Jazz Bass, Bass VI, Bass V, Jazzmaster, Jaguar). Ordinary models (P-bass, Telecaster, Stratocaster) just had dot inlays with an unbound neck.

[Diesel Kilgore]

Thanks for the info. I plan on doing a vintage jazz build and was curious about what neck options were period correct. Now I know.

[musicman666]

Curious if Fender ever did a P bass with block inlays on maple...??

[80jazz]

I could be totally wrong, but I thought maple fretboards for jazz basses first appeared as an option in 1968. I have only seen pics of one example of this, but perhaps it was not true.

I think they were certainly an option in 1969, but did not seem to start being common until 1971.