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NBD - 1963 Jazz

#22
whitelines said:
That's interesting Tim1, doing a quick look around the webs, I think you are probably right. I'll investigate more.
Thx
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i was thinking about hitting this up too when a local TB'er in UT told me about it. i unfortunately opted out of it though since i had other things possibly going on.....

i did find some of the notes i gathered from a fellow TB enthusiast. take it as you may.

"That decal on the headstock did not even appear with 5 pat. #s and the larger "trade mark" font until mid 1965. Also, the "offset contour body" decal is separate from the other decal and located on the ball end of the headstock (a '64 and later feature). These facts along with the '62 neck stamp makes me 100% certain it was refinned by the factory circa 1965.

I do not see any nail holes on the body which means the body is either post 1965, or they filled the holes in during the refin.. although you would normally see marks from the holes and since I do not, it's my opinion that the body is probably not a '63 at all, but most likely an original finish '65 or '66 body. The empressed letters under the pickguard also support that opinion. So.. the bass is either a '65/62 parts bass with a refinned neck, or a complete refinned 1963."
 
#28
whitelines said:
I picked up a set of Ernie Ball FWs at the store when I got the bass, it was the only brand available. I like the tension on them, the bass is super tight to play with them, but they don't seem to have the thump of the chromes that are on my P-Bass. Maybe they need to season a bit.
Click to expand...
The older versions, or the Cobalt flats?

Maybe for the time being, they need a bit of foam at the bridge.
 
#29
kulit17 said:
i was thinking about hitting this up too when a local TB'er in UT told me about it. i unfortunately opted out of it though since i had other things possibly going on.....

i did find some of the notes i gathered from a fellow TB enthusiast. take it as you may.

"That decal on the headstock did not even appear with 5 pat. #s and the larger "trade mark" font until mid 1965. Also, the "offset contour body" decal is separate from the other decal and located on the ball end of the headstock (a '64 and later feature). These facts along with the '62 neck stamp makes me 100% certain it was refinned by the factory circa 1965.

I do not see any nail holes on the body which means the body is either post 1965, or they filled the holes in during the refin.. although you would normally see marks from the holes and since I do not, it's my opinion that the body is probably not a '63 at all, but most likely an original finish '65 or '66 body. The empressed letters under the pickguard also support that opinion. So.. the bass is either a '65/62 parts bass with a refinned neck, or a complete refinned 1963."
Click to expand...


Good info. I'll take the pick guard off this weekend and look more closely for the holes. There is certainly some amount of refinishing that has happened in the past, the back is clearly a tough poly and is smooth. The front of the body is checked quite a bit with fine grain lines running orthogonally to the grain of the wood (hard to see from the photos) and your right forearm gets a little sticky when you play it for a while, so that seems like a nitro finish to me. The neck is also nitro, and the headstock has some checking. However, the back of the neck is worn smooth and not as sticky as my 2012 select precision (nitro neck/body). The body of the neck fretboard has some digging an wear on it from someone playing a lot of thumb tug-bar style plucking, and the sunburst was worn through near there and appears to have been covered in poly. From what I've read, the Fender factory refinish service was pretty utilitarian, more like an auto shop than a restoration service. Maybe Fender took the neck off and refinished it, and slapped on the sticker they had around (circa 1965) and the owner chose to save some money by only refinishing the back of the body (i.e. no electronics dis and re-assembly)?

I did take a close look at the pots this morning, the are all stackpole pots marked 1963. According to one of the sites, Fender faded from using stackpole to CTS pots in 1963. The solder looks old and oxidized with flux remnants around the edges of the blobs. The pickup covers have the look and texture of the older jazz pickup covers that are specified on some of the vintage sites. If the pots and pickups cant be removed from the body without de-soldering them, then I'd think it's likely that the body is a 63.

I'm not too worried about this bass being a counterfeit, Utah is not a big market for guitar collectors. This would have been a ton of effort to make a clearly refinished and non-cherry 63 Jazz that you could at best only sell for 50% of a totally stock non-refin. It would be nice to figure out a reasonable explanation for the sticker though. I'd love to hear any theories from more experienced TB'rs.
 
#31
nerkoids said:
The older versions, or the Cobalt flats?

Maybe for the time being, they need a bit of foam at the bridge.
Click to expand...

The set is these, don't think they are the colbolt kind?:
P02804.png
 

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