NBD: 1964 Custom Color Fender Jazz

[grocker]

My dream bass, enjoy.

 

[jim nolte]

This neck is mid way through the transition to pearloid dots - so the dots on the front of the fingerboard are pearloid, but the side dots are clay

Yeah the dot thing was weird during this time, I have a ' 65 Jazz, neck date May 65, just 5 months newer than yours and it has clay dots on fingerboard and sides which apparently is rather rare, there wasn't a lot of consistency during the winding down of the pre- CBS years, enjoy it, mine is by far the best Jazz I've ever played.

 

[mikeswals]

With as much exposure and wear on that bass, one wonders why the clay dots appear so bright white. Do they look that white in person?

Yeah the dot thing was weird during this time, I have a ' 65 Jazz, neck date May 65, just 5 months newer than yours and it has clay dots on fingerboard and sides which apparently is rather rare, there wasn't a lot of consistency during the winding down of the pre- CBS years, enjoy it, mine is by far the best Jazz I've ever played.

For the past two months I had been shopping hard for a 63-64 Jazz. Every Dec 64 neck I saw had pearl dots, which is consistent with what's been reported over the years.

Jim's May bass seems to be a neck that was forgotten about or pushed to the back of the rack or something.
5 years ago when I shopped for a 65 I hadn't ever saw any other 65's with clays, so its beyond a rarity!

 

[JIO]

SHOW YOUR DISTRESSED FINISHES!

 

[jim nolte]

For the past two months I had been shopping hard for a 63-64 Jazz. Every Dec 64 neck I saw had pearl dots, which is consistent with what's been reported over the years.

Jim's May bass seems to be a neck that was forgotten about or pushed to the back of the rack or something.
5 years ago when I shopped for a 65 I hadn't ever saw any other 65's with clays, so its beyond a rarity!

That's what I always thought, the neck was at the bottom of a bin or the back of the rack or something but the Fender experts here have said because the neck was stamped MAY 65 it was probably more likely that when made they had some clay dots laying around still and they ended using them on my neck, maybe they were short on pearl, for many years I thought it was a '64 because of that.

 

[bobyoung53]

This is what they are trying to copy when they attempt to make a new bass look roadworn. There is no substitute for the way a bass looks when it has been actually played on stage with wreckless abandon over the years. Not a slam on roadworn basses; just complete admiration for a bass that has been loved this much. Beautiful!

Yup, my '67-68 CAR Precision looked a lot like that when I sold it, nitro wears very smooth down to the wood, the edges get feathery, mine had less dents but was just as worn when I sold it in 1995. I did the equivalent of that amount of wear in about twenty years as it was like new when I first got it. I didn't abuse it, just played it a lot. I have seen very few relic basses that look real. The sides of the neck on mine was also worn smooth down to the wood.

Edit, I just went back and looked at it, mine was actually much more worn where my arm rested on top of the edge of the bass.

 

[Sparky Mark]

Yep - it's wear from picking hand - it's actually a groove that's about 1/8" deep - I tried to capture it here
View attachment 4990718

That's an amazing amount of wear! The guy must've had skin like sand paper.