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So 70's Fender are desirable now?!

#101
As Mastermold mentioned, 70's is not the highest point in Fender's production quality. But there are some nice basses from that era that lived up until now as well (I would love to see some statistics on how many of the Fenders lived up to now).

I would personally divide the 70's into two sub-periods. Up until 1974 when Fender started switching to the 3-bolt neck joint, it is more likely to find a decent bass in my opinion. However, as of 74-75, they started using the heaviest possible ash on earth and the neck joint was so poorly designed that the already bad neck joint construction became even more obvious (try to shake the bass downwards and see what the neck does on a 3-bolt joint). I find most of these basses with the heavy ash bass and treble heavy but lacking mids. So I would definitely stay away from these... Again, this is just personal preference. It might work for someone else.

In the meantime, I have a '73 bass which is quite fine (and people love it as well). I remember going to the Main Drag Music in Brooklyn, NY to look for a pedal, but when I tried the pedal with the JB, I fell in love with it and ended up buying it. I must admit, though, when I tried a brand new Jazz Bass a few years ago, I wanted to get rid of the '73 and get that one right there. But the whole "vintage" thing stopped me from doing that. Not that I even care, as I replaced the original pickups with some Fralins and changed the control panel with better caps and pots, so no more authenticity!

Anyway, if you do not have the budget for a Fender from first half of the 60's, and you like to have a "vintage" Fender, first few years of 70's might work, but you really have to spend some time to find a decent one. I find most basses from those days having neck/truss rod issues. So, rather than spending all the time and money, I would go brand new or a Custom Shop... IMO and IME...
 
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#104
First, it's obvious that no one flipped a switch and 70's Fenders are uniformly bad. Ownership changes always bring different looks at solving 'problems', but by and large the same workplace population was still there, and nice axes were made.

But the design and spec changes that filtered in were noticeable, and for me not desirable. When I started playing in the mid-70's, of course EVERYONE told me I had to have a Fender. Every one I tried in my local stores had baseball-bat necks, some were really heavy, and I just kept wondering 'HOW did these boats ever get their reputation?' Then a friend let me try his 60's Jazz: It was light, responsive, terrific sort of flat-C neck profile, just wonderful, but I could not find a new one that bore any semblance to that axe. So I played Yamahas for a long time. I certainly never sampled a lot of new 70's Fenders, but the ones I did drove me off.

Second: But really to me the reason they are coming on in desirability is that the 50's and 60's pieces are pricing themselves out of the market for most normal guys, and only trust fund babies or other members of the 'More Money than Sense Club' are the only players in that money range.

For me personally, they're just 'old guitars'. If I had to have something like that, Fender themselves and any number of great equivalents exist out there with modern finish, wiring and pickups. That 'vintage guitar fever' is utterly lost on me.
 
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#106
73jbass said:
The heavier basses came after 75 or so. My 73 is a good medium weight, has a gap in the neck pocket you could fly a 737 into, and I wouldnt change it for anything. The last time I adjusted the neck was about 10 years ago.
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I never was bothered by neck gaps in a guitar or bass...never was an issue for me and I've had basses with big gaps. Also never even considered the weight until I started selling basses and people asked me about it. I had a late '75 P bass that was to some on the heavy side but it had killer tone...sounded like Family man's bass. Close to an upright tone. Along with that was very aesthetically pleasing IMO.
 
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#107
I own a '76 P-Bass that gets minimal playing time. My 2015 Am. Std P is my main instrument, followed by my 2015 Am. Std Jazz Bass. The '76 is far too heavy to play comfortably for sustained periods of time.
Basses.JPG
 
#109
I have a '76 P that is just an outstanding example of what a P Bass is supposed to be - plays and sounds great, weighs right around 8lbs... I also had a '74 P that was the proverbial boat anchor - it played and sounded good enough, but weighed around 10lbs, and was pretty road worn... I flipped the '74 for a decent profit, and kept the '76:

 
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#110
narud said:
its going to be 2018. People have been posting this same thread for almost 20 years since I started posting at the fender discussion page.

70s fenders have always been great if you are looking for what they do. They're not 60s fenders and don't sound like them. I'm a jazz bass guy and 10 years ago you could get a late 70s Marcus style jazz for mid to high 1k. You still can today. Sounds pretty good to me.
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Yup - and some of the greatest music ever recorded was played on 70's Fender basses and guitars, which makes me laugh when I see people post so negatively about them...
 
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#112
Would suspect much of the new love for the 70s Fenders is derived from the fact that one of their best selling models, the Geddy Lee, is based on a modified 70s model.

Suspect that Fender wanted to distill those positive elements from that era and avoid the shoddy workmanship via modern production methods. Also suspect that many of us were looking to seek out that rare "diamond in the rough" for ourselves.
 
#113
chris_b said:
Fenders were the most desirable basses in the 70's, so they couldn't have been all that bad or 99% of bass players would have been playing something else.
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I think they were “most desirable” by reputation and availability. There are a lot of “lawsuit” basses that are held in higher regard than original ‘70s Fenders (and other brands too).
 
#114
Vinnie Boombatz said:
What's up with the bridge on that thing? Doesn't look right.
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That particular Jazz, and thousands of other early 70's Ps and Js all had the bridge mounted too far back, probably from a badly worn or misplaced jig. The end result looks like this Jazz, with the saddles way out on the base plate. It's a common problem.
 
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#116
It seems odd to me. Not all of the '70s-era Fender basses are bad, but I've run into precious few that were actually quite good relative to other readily-available options. I was there at the time. The reason the pre-CBS Fenders became so cherished is they were typically far superior to the new product that was coming from the company at the time. Of course now we have a huge variety of high-quality products available at reasonable prices. And for those of us a little further on in life, we have a wide variety of "unreasonably-priced" high-quality options as well! ;)
 
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#119
When I had my bass built, I used the 70's J spacing on purpose. I like that growl and I feel like the 70's bridge pickup solo cuts through the mix better than the 60's spacing. A silly cosmetic change that actually completely changed the sound in a desireable way. Would I kick a pre-CBS J out of bed, no way.

I had a 70's Frankenstien P 73 body with a 77 P neck butchered to fit the original active PJ EMG's. To date it it is probably the bass I let go that I regret the most.

Good things happened in the 70's for Fender, if you found a good example.
 
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