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Precision Bass serial number is wonky
- Thread starter DogsAndStuff
- Start date
My advice would be to post some pics of the bass, as well as a serial number , and in less than am hour you’ll have a definitive answer.
I bought a '79 P that had the body stripped and repainted flat black with a brush and space scenes on it. It cost me $99 back in the mid '90s. The body was in horrible shape but the neck is my favorite Fender P bass neck in over 50 years playing. The body is long gone but I still have the '79 neck on a nice '73 Fender natural (yellowed) body.
Did you change the bridge? How many screws are holding the bridge down? 5 or 3? It could also be an early 80s with that serial number since they used S9 serials for a few years after 1979
That white pickup - presuming it's the original one - also screams early '80s.
'82 Standard.
White PU - no thumb rest.
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I LOVE my '79 P., in as much as I can love any Fender product anymore (long, bad history with Fender).
I was very lucky in that the bass belonged to a friend of mine and I had "borrowed" it, several times through the years so I was able to get familiar with it before purchase.
If you have the time, Fender is usually very good with talking with customers on the phone. In fact, because of all the mishegoss with how CBS sold the company back to the employees, their records and specs are a bit spotty and they are looking for owners of CBS-era instruments to help them with "rebuilding" their data base (at least, they were, the last time I spoke with them).
I was very lucky in that the bass belonged to a friend of mine and I had "borrowed" it, several times through the years so I was able to get familiar with it before purchase.
If you have the time, Fender is usually very good with talking with customers on the phone. In fact, because of all the mishegoss with how CBS sold the company back to the employees, their records and specs are a bit spotty and they are looking for owners of CBS-era instruments to help them with "rebuilding" their data base (at least, they were, the last time I spoke with them).
According to Kennis Russell on YouTube, Fender never put the string tree over the F and d in the logo. Check him out. He gives talks on spotting fakes.Thanks @elgranluis !
I hang out a little on strat-talk.com. There's a recent thread there that's pretty informative about the various quirks of the Fender serial numbers. One thing being, like most companies, they didn't keep 100% accuracy because no one knew there would be this thing called the internet where people were going to want to look them up in 2.8 seconds. In their jammies.
Smooth_bass88
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- Oct 31, 2006
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those are neat, and they definitely have their place in Fender's history since they're the very last instruments built in Fullerton CA
Sarbanes Oxley was passed into law in 2002. Best I can tell, Fender and many other businesses gave their first official crappe about record keeping when it became a big problem if they didn’t.
FWIW my 73 P bass SN is a Strat and a Mustang. I had their customer service validate my instrument years ago.
Thanks HyperC! Five bridge screws. Fender must have had some of those '70's necks left over with the serial numbers already printed...
They did and they were used through the early 80s as mentioned. An easy tell is the neck stamp. From around 1972 through 1979 there should be an 8 digit stamp, in 1980 they went to a simple date stamp. The stamps are often worn or incomplete, but if your neck still has one that might help.
I’ll be sure to steer away from him, thanks for the heads up !
