FYI, there are two Fender Jazz custom shop bodies (along with the bridge and neck plate) for sale on eBay (olympic white and ice blue metallic). The seller is "Stratosphere" which is a very reputable seller. They've been selling guitar/bass parts on there for years. NO affiliation.
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Is This a Fender Custom Shop Body?
- Thread starter Quadzilla
- Start date
I was going to say the same thing, "Well.... I can think of one guy that probably knows."
There's no value in a parts bass with mixed custom shop body and neck. The reason is Fender's custom shop is not production line of bolt on parts like their other lines. Fitting is done by hand, and the two matched parts... the original body and neck are gone. It's like buying a mixed parts Sadowsky.
Anybody who sells a mixed parts bass, and proclaiming it a custom shop is perpetuating a fraud. It's not custom whatsoever, even with a custom shop body from this one, and a custom shop neck from that one. Stratosphere is part of the fraud in this regard. Heck, they even put "Custom Shop" in their auction title on a body because it's a standard with custom shop pickups sticker on it.
- Jan 26, 2014
- 1,525
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- I teach lessons and perform live music in and around San Diego CA. Sometimes I even make money doing it!
This was a professional operation by a reputable doctor.
Disagree. I currently own a bass with a real-deal Custom Shop neck and it bolted perfectly to a US Made AllParts body. Tight neck pocket, etc...
Of course you do. You're likely hoping your Allparts body with a custom shop neck retains good value. It's really nothing more than MIA neck on a Allparts body with custom shop sticker and a better than usual fret dressing. The hand fitting vanished when the neck was removed and stuck on another body.
It's that hand fitting is where the value of a true custom shop is. When you bolt parts together, you're doing nothing more than what the regular line workers in Fender do for standards.
What Fender Custom Shop pieces do you have on your non-Custom Shop bass?
BTW, I am not God.
woah dude - you are kind of coming off as bitter here. dude likes his bass and i doubt hes thinking about resale. your opinion is that the hand fitting is where the value comes from which...is just....like your opinion man.
I actually chuckled at your post. You come off as angry. But I know the neck is worth more than a standard u.s. neck. It's quarter-sawn and it has superior fretwork and it is in fact a custom shop neck which makes it superior. So again, I disagree with you completely.
I understand your point, but CS goes quite a bit farther with their wood selection, fret work, etc...
A CS neck is still likely to be a much nicer neck than an MIM or AS.
A CS relic body is still likely to be a much nicer finish than an MIM or AS.
Neckpocket fit is NOT the most important part of the construction process. (if I had to argue, I would say fretwork is the single most important factor in a high end instrument.)
And the Fender Custom Shop makes the Pino Palladino Signature P-bass that is a copy of Pino's original parts bass, i.e. with neck and body taken from two different basses (1962 body and 1963 neck AFAIK).
- Jan 26, 2014
- 1,525
- 1,946
- Disclosures
- I teach lessons and perform live music in and around San Diego CA. Sometimes I even make money doing it!
Interesting. Next time I see him, I gotta ask my friend who works there how "custom" each fitting is on their off the rack basses/guitars. I for one don't take the name "custom shop" to mean every piece is a custom job, because obviously it's not, it just means it was made in the custom shop, where they also happen to do custom work. Is each neck purpose built for each body? I kinda doubt it, although I'm sure they take care in making sure each part is a good match.
At any rate, of course a CS parts bass doesn't have the resale value of an original CS... unless someone pays more for it, then it does. But generally speaking if a seller is honest, they can't expect their modded instrument to have the value of an original. Unless it's modded by John Entwhistle, then it might fetch a couple extra bucks.
