Help! Is it a genuine MIJ Jazz Bass?

[BurningSkies]

It's interesting going through Fender catalogs

I find all of this oddly ironic. Fujigen was, at one point, one of the companies making copies of Fenders - stuff out of their production in a certain era would have been regarded as a "knockoff". Fast forward a few model years, and this particular instrument was made, likely with the same tooling, but with Fender's blessing. Now, we're discussing if it's a "legit" Fujigen made Fender or not.

In many ways Fender was ahead of its time with this move. They realized that it was the name that sells the instruments. And they knew that there were Japanese MI companies who were making instruments that were both cheaper and as good or better than the American made Fenders of that era that were totally digging into their business...In the end, these instruments became no less Fender than ones made by Fender in the USA and things like their reissues were often more true to the original than what was being done here.

 

[Mannyinnewyork]

My MIJ Jbass is my favorite ever. Shipped off ebay for $700 about four years ago. Best bass I've ever had. No problems and a leap of faith on my part.
Great bass.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Welp, there you go. It does look legitimate otherwise.

Although something keeps bringing me back to the neck where the screw go in... it looks a little off, but I can't put my finger on it...

Here's a 94-95 Mij JB75 neck
View attachment 4281577

And here's an CIJ strat neck. View attachment 4281578

That's the micro tilt plate.

 

[Smooth_bass88]

If that's real, it's a JB75-90. Fair market (not current) for the 90's are $800-900 or so (because of the incorrect pup spacing) and the 00's are $1000+ depending on the shape.

I have a 2004 and there are a few things about this bass that are suspect.

That year jb75 SHOULD be "Crafted in Japan" not made in and the cursive is NOT correct - I've never seen anything like that on any of these, and I'd been researching them and looking into them for awhile before buying mine. That looks to have been added on at some point. If it's a copy, it's a good one.


Fender Japan - Wikipedia

*Edit - it should be noted that "typical" is not absolute.

There's nothing 'incorrect' about the pickup spacing. The Japanese Fender '75 Jazz Basses deliberately had 60s pickup spacing for some reason. I had one. It was sunburst/rosewood. Decent bass but definitely not worth a thousand bucks.

I just bought a '91 Japanese Fender 50s P Bass from a music store for under $600.

To answer the OP's question, yes, this is a genuine Fender Jazz Bass.

 

[getbent]

Just speaking as a guy who owns 2 MIJ Jazz basses from ~1989-90 (serial numbers on headstock beginning with H & I):

• the headstock looks correct, my pickguard looks clean like that (mostly because i took it off and stored it while rocking tort), the bridge and the knobs are correct. I stripped the finish off one of them and it was 3 pieces of wood
• everything around the neck pocket looks different than mine: the date stamp, the logo neck plate, the inset circular adjuster thing, and I've never seen a "CIJ/MIJ" label in that font/script

If it's anything like mine, fantastic quality instruments, but $1000 seems over priced, but used market has shot up recently. Caveat emptor, especially if it's in another country and you can't play it first

 

[Zak TMD]

There's nothing 'incorrect' about the pickup spacing. The Japanese Fender '75 Jazz Basses deliberately had 60s pickup spacing for some reason. I had one. It was sunburst/rosewood. Decent bass but definitely not worth a thousand bucks.

I just bought a '91 Japanese Fender 50s P Bass from a music store for under $600.

To answer the OP's question, yes, this is a genuine Fender Jazz Bass.

"Incorrect" for a 70's reissue. They swapped to the 70's placing around 00.

I bought my '04 JB75 for a bit more than a grand. Sell/buy prices for the '00s have been $1k plus for about two years (if they are in good shape). Back in '18-early to '19 both the 00s JB75s and the CIJ Geddy Lees could occasionally be grabbed for between $700-900 (condition dependent), but with the increase in price of the MIMs across the board, I'd expect the prices won't drop back down to those levels, as a brand new MIM GL is now $1099.

As of this moment 90s jb75s are bottom price $999, and 00's are $1200 - and I'm seeing about 10 of them (5 in the US) across all the markets I've looked at, so supply is low (at the moment)