1962 Jazz bass -- 5.4lbs??

That is insanely light.

 

I have had one 1962 Jazz bass in my hands ever. I remember it not being heavy, but there is no way it was less than 7 or 8 pounds.

 

That sounds like an acoustic guitar weight.

 

I'll bet your scale is reading out in kilograms.

 

Seems quite unusual. You say no obvious routing, so we may assume you've looked under the pickguard? Does it subjectively feel that light? 5.4# would be really noticeable.

 

sounds off. try a couple more scales. try a hanging scale if you can.

 

Move your bathroom scale away from the counter.

 

Also, are you sure its a '62? It doesn't look like it has a slab board like I would expect.

 

It may indeed be a 62 but the finish of the neck on the treble side where it meets the body doesn't seem to match the profile of the body. Are you sure that's the original neck / body? I've seen a lot of vintage basses listed for sale that were assembled from vintage parts. So therefore not IMO 100% factory original. Still a sweet looking bass. But also honestly, how does someone get that much finish chipping in the lower cutaway? Smooth finish wear I could see but that's extreme.

 

Agreed. Something is off here. I have never heard of, or seen a Jazz Bass under 7 lbs.

 

Bathroom scale?
Probably not accurate in the lower end.

Put a 5 pound bag of sugar and a 5 pound bag of flour on it to check accurately.
OR 1/2 gallon of milk is about 4 pounds.

 

Wasn't '62 the transition year from slab to veneer? I think there were jazz basses made both ways that year.

 

I have a 66 P bass that weighs 7.6 lbs which is incredibly lightweight and cannot fathom a 62 J that is another 2+ ibs lighter than that, though happy to be proved wrong.

 

There’s no way your case is 1.8 pounds. It’s time to get a new scale.

 

Does it feel like a 5 pound bass? That’s about what Beatle bass would weight. It should feel like Styrofoam. You should hit the ceiling accidentally every time and grab it

 

My lightest bass is 6.6 pounds. I build a lot of light basses, and I know what it takes to make a bass light - every piece has to be light to get under 7.5 on a 4 or under 8 on a 5 string. My 6.6 pounder has an insanely light piece of swamp ash for a body, a body shape that's smaller then a jazz, only one pickup, a roasted neck with graphite reinformcement rods, all aluminum hardware (bridge, tuners, neck plate, even the 2 knobs it has are aluminum). It doesn't thave a pickguard (thats about 60 grams or .15 pounds). I highly doubt that any Fender bass with the original clunky steel hardware (tuners, neck plate, bridge, and control plate) weighs less than 6 pounds. Especially a Jazz - bigger body, two pickups, etc.

My 6.6 pound figure is from two scales I have, which weigh to the gram and which always agree with each other within a gram. Technically, that bass is 2984 grams (6.58 pounds), but if you get to that level of precision, and have decent scales, you'll find things like basses weigh 20 or 30 grams less in the winter (in my climate) because they're drier. And, of course, the gauge of strings you put on will change the weight a bit.

A bathroom scale isn't even close to good enough to weigh a bass accurately, but you can get postal or kitchen scales that work very well for that weight range for reasonable prices - I have one of each.