I bought a 1965 Jazz in 1966. Used it through high school, some college, toured using it for 3 years with a nightclub group playing 5-nights a week 50-weeks a year, and after coming off the road to raise a family. I continued to play weekends with it until 1976, when shortly after moving to Oregon, the house was burglarized and they stole all my touring gear. That was my '65 Jazz, my piggy back Standel MCIIb/SAM30b amp, my Shure 565sd mic and my Shure 585d mic. Funny thing looking back at it was that they only took one of my two Atlas mic stands. They had that heavy weight cast iron bass and I guess one was heavy enough for them.
Wasn't until 1985 that I was able to buy another Jazz Bass and it was a 1982 Jazz in Olympic White with a white-bound all-maple neck and 70's era pickup spacing of 4" center to center. The price people were getting for my '65 in 1976 but in 1985 it had gone up to $40,000. If I still had it I wouldn't have sold it though. I loved that bass. Price for a '65 Jazz in good shape has gone up and down numerous times, but they are hard to find. One of the unusual things about my '65 Jazz was that they used mother of pearl for the dot inlays instead of the white dots they had been using up until then. Below is a picture of me playing in that touring group in either late 1971 or early 1972. That's my Standel amp between the guitarist and the female vocalist.:
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I bought my '82 Jazz in 1985 because when I picked it off the wall of the music shop where I was working part-time (had gone back to college) and played it, it just felt like coming home. Every Jazz I'd tried since 1976 had a fat neck...like an obese Jazz bass neck. This one felt exactly like my '65. It has what I believe is called a "60's Slim C-shape neck with a 7.25" radius. I didn't have an amp when I bought it but finally got one in 1997 and started gigging again.
I didn't realize I had anything unusual until a fellow from Denmark who was often on the Eden Forum asked about it. I always thought it was a late '77 or early '78 Jazz from the serial number but that's not the case. A fellow here on TB who had worked for Fender back in the 80's said those "S8" serial numbers, which were supposed to mean 1978, were used well into the 1980's. Also said that the white bound necks were only standard in 1966 (when I first saw them) and in 1982. He suggested I get the date codes from my controls to get a better idea of when it was made. Unlike my '65, which did have a date stamp on the heel of the neck, my '82 doesn't have that. It has Jose Serna's name, "J. Serna", stamped on the neck but he built necks for Fender for 50-years...so that wasn't much help. Did open up the controls for my bass and took pictures. It appears to be the original wiring and the tone pot had the numbers we were looking for. From the numbers on the pot, it's a CTS control that was made the 4th week of 1982 and since Fender didn't keep a large stock of them on hand, he said the bass would be within a max of about 2 months of that date. Those controls were a constant turn over and the supplier was right down the street.
I'm not sure it has a collector value but I did check with the custom shop and it would be about $4,000 to build another one just like it. The neck would be the biggest reason for that. They haven't made that neck for a long time and didn't offer it through the Mod shop because of the slimness of it and the 7.25" radius. Fender went to a 9.5" radius later in the 80's. And that neck is what made me buy it in the first place. I didn't realize how good it sounded until I got an amp again in 1997. It's a bit brighter than my '65 was and has a ton more sustain. It also growls better and more easily when I dig into the strings above the bridge pickup than my '65 did. I loved my '65 and would really like to have it back, but even if I did, my 1982 Jazz would remain my primary bass. She's a beauty; she plays like my '65 and both sounds and records better than my '65.
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