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69 Pbass color question

Discussion in 'Basses [BG]' started by jgsbass, Jun 26, 2008.

  1. Jun 26, 2008 #1
    jgsbass

    jgsbass

    May 28, 2003
    Floral Park, NY
    I have struck up a friendship with a bass playing engineer who works where one of my bands rehearses. He mentioned he had a 69 Pbass and after months of talking, it happened to be out at last nights rehearsal. It has a new neck but he has the original (shattered in a car accident) neck. What is strange about this bass is the order of colors. I know that Fender applied a whitish undercoat to the basses to help seal the wood and make the paint adhere better. I also know that Fender would pull basses off the line and repaint them to fill orders. Here is where it gets wierd. The bass is a sunburst that has seen many mojo intensive years of use and large patches of white are showing through, as well as some areas of bare wood. The white that does show definitely has a gloss finish on it ( the undercoat wasnt a glossy finish on the Fenders I've seen/refinished) and its apparent that the white was on first. Where the white is showing, there is no grain visible, but in the sunburst, there is grain. If you run your finger along the line where the finish is coming off, you can feel that the sunburst is applied over the white.

    So, is it possible that they made a sunburst out of a white bass?

    and why doesn't the grain show through the white but is visible in the sunburst?

    We're both confused
     
  2. Jun 26, 2008 #2
    mikeswals

    mikeswals Supporting Member

    Nov 18, 2002
    Seattle / Tacoma
    Alot of us Fender nuts have been calling that 'faux burst'. There have been quite a few pictured examples of this technique going on round 68-71ish. Fender actually hand painted grain streaks in the white paint before the yellow coats went on. There's a pretty good pictorial site some guy did documenting his late 60's fender guitar, you could probably google it since he called it faux burst also.

    I saw this on a local '68 (faux burst) sunburst Jazz Bass for sale, where I brought my '69 sunburst Jazz along for comparison. The '68 threw me for a loop when I first saw the solid white undercoat exposed from the top-coats of paint chipping, but I had to look closely at the graining in the burst area, and it was obvious the top-coats were factory poly paint. I posted my findings over on the fender forum and sure enough, there were quite a few folks that had faux bursts over the years. Since then, I've seen a few turn up on ebay and such, and although it doesn't appear to be as attractive as a normal sunburst, the general consensus was it didn't affect the values much.
     
  3. Jun 26, 2008 #3
    Jim Carr

    Jim Carr Dr. Jim

    Jan 21, 2006
    Denton, TX or Kailua, HI
    fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
    Wow. Thanks! I have heard of these, but never seen one.

    I wonder if anyone on TB has one or has a pic. Perhaps the OP would
    be willing to try convincing his friend that a pic of his bass posted here
    would be of great interest to us fanatics. :hyper:
     
  4. Jun 26, 2008 #4
    jgsbass

    jgsbass

    May 28, 2003
    Floral Park, NY
    I bet I can get the owner to join up, just to get the answer. I'm sending him the link, now. And from what I remember, the grain does look a little close.
     
  5. Jun 26, 2008 #5
    mikeswals

    mikeswals Supporting Member

    Nov 18, 2002
    Seattle / Tacoma
  6. Jun 26, 2008 #6
    Jim Carr

    Jim Carr Dr. Jim

    Jan 21, 2006
    Denton, TX or Kailua, HI
    fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147