Mystery 1960 Precision Bass Marking, Please Help Me!

i dont, but i want to know!

 

+1

 

does the pencil mark look like it was just written in? Or old?

Also, did these have clay dot necks on them??

 

No Clue here, as expected...

 

My guess is that it was etched there to identify it as stock belonging to a rental company or a studio in case of theft. I've never seen anything remotely similar described as coming from the Fender factory, from any era.

That doesn't explain why the ink date is above the etching, but the date looks oddly clean for a bass that old.

Is it a refin, or original finish?

 

Don't know, but it looks like the pencil date was put on after the impression was made.

Also trussrod adjustment nut is quite worn and it's very deep in the hole. Something's going on there as well.

 

try to do some research, or get some answers here on clay dot necks.....

I'm not 100% positive, but Im pretty sure in 1960 they still had clay dot necks on the basses.....

maybe someone can chime in on this. But if you have seen some necks from the era, the clay dot is different from the inlayed abalone or whatever else they used after that.

check out this link
http://www.elderly.com/vintage/names/fender-precision-(1960)--55U-4138.htm

Here is a 1960 with clay dot markers.

Aside from the neck date, you can check the POTS. They should have a date on them according to the number on the pots. Look for altered solder joints. i.e. big clumps of solder might mean after market solder job.

CTS(Chicago Telephone Supply) pots should have a numbered code on them. The first 3 numbers should be 137=CTS. This designates a CTS pot. The next two numbers are the year, then the last two are the week from that year...
So if you have a pot code of 1376015 is a CTS pot from the 15th week of 1960.
Here is a link to more info on that.
http://www.provide.net/~cfh/pots.html

I hope this helps out, but there is a lot of info on Fender POTS on the web. Do a search and you can read up on it for yourself.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck, and let us know how it turns out.

 

its a prototype...

research and revelopment ^^

 

Actually I was thinking "R&R STOCK" could be for "Repair and Replace Stock" but I've never seen that on a factory Fender.

Perhaps a repair shop put the stamp there for whatever reason.

 

This was going to be my guess also. Perhaps the original neck was warped or broken and Fender kept a stock of Replacement and Repair necks on hand? But I don't see why they'd bother stamping them, just put them all on a separate shelf or something. Maybe they sent necks out to authorized repair centers and wanted to make sure they were permanently labeled?

 

heres my question.......wouldnt the stamp have eaten through the pencil if the pencil was written first? shouldnt the neck be dated before stamped?

 

I've flipped through my Fender History books and nothing jumped out at me. I remember stories of basses that were solid or custom colors not selling well due to the popularity of sunburst. Everyone wanted sunburst. Especially in England. I've heard stories of new, unsold basses often being stripped and refinished to Burst for the demand. R&R...refinished and restocked ??? What color is the body.

Maybe they made that neck out of a railroad tie..R&R Stock Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

I did a google search for that and the only thing that came up remotely close (besides the Craigslist listing for this bass) was a Telecaster Discussion thread about a strat that was parted out on ebay back in 2006 or so. It seems to me that they are saying that the strat had that marked on the heel as well and it turned out to be a refinish. They did not mention though whether the marking ahd anything to do with the refinish.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/bad-dog-cafe/48671-tune-o-matic.html

 

repair and refinish?

 

thats what I was thinking...

 

There are a few things you can look at on the neck to ascertain it's year made, besides clay dots (occuring until '64) like the patent numbers on the headstock. I'm no P expert but I would strongly advise the OP take plenty of pictures of the neck and bass and have a real expert look at them. That penciled date looks very fishy to me, being so clean, seeing how the neck was probably removed many times to adjust the trussrod, for one.

Just making guesses about the stamp is pointless without real evidence about Fender factory practices in 1960, and I've never heard about them stamping like this.

It was common for Fender to refinish sunbursts in custom colours to fill demand for special orders, or if the S/B was botched, but not vice versa, IIRC. UK demand for Fiesta Red Ps was high in the '60s due to The Shadows' bassist famously using one, and unsubtantiated rumours about 'salmon pink' (more correctly faded Fiesta red) refins done by the UK importer have been floating around for years.

 

I agree that the penciled date doesn't look like any other I've seen. The long dash between numerals is curious. Most of the time, on basses of this era, you see 3 distinct sets of numerals not separated by a long dash marking. The "R & R Stock" thing doesn't perplex me as much as the pencil marking. To me, that's a lot of trouble to go to for no apparent reason at all. Seems to me creating a stamp like that and stamping it into the end of a neck isn't something someone would do just to create an anomaly designed to throw people off! I put more credence in the unknown legitimacy of that stamp than I do in the pencil date.