First bass with a tort pickguard?

[BassBob185]

Talk about useless trivia.....Does anyone know what the first commercially produced bass was with a tort pick guard? I don't know the answer but I was reading one of my bass books and the question popped in my ole brain. A picture would be nice also.

It was probably a Fender bass, don't you think?

Thanks

 

[Spinal Tapper]

Earliest I can think of - 1960 Stack Knob jazz bass (and yes, I just wanted to post this pic again)

but I'm sure there's an earlier one...btw, this picture taken a few weeks ago - that tort guard that's gone orange is almost 50 years old!

 

[dakpluto]

Wets pants.

 

[Arizona Jones]

'59 Precision was first, right?

 

[BassBob185]

Wow great looking bass SpinalTapper. Its gotta be a Fender, curious to see year/model

 

[Spinal Tapper]

Wow great looking bass SpinalTapper. Its gotta be a Fender, curious to see year/model

Thanks - I guess - it's not mine unfortunately. A friend of a friend who owns a music shop just picked it up. I DID get to play it though, for about 20 minutes. Let me just tell you...if God himself played bass (which he probably does), this would for sure be in his arsenal. Butter. All day.

 

[EricF]

IIRC, somewhere in '59 or '60 Fender started using tort guards. Most of the '59 Ps I've seen still have a gold pg like the '57. Like most spec changes at Fender, they usually didn't occur at the start of a particular year.