Vintage Fender Fretless - Part it Out or Keep It Whole?

Have an 87 Jazz Special MIJ with Precision and Jazz Pickups, a three way toggle and individual volume and single tone control, fretless, back body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard.

The neck feels so good and the fretboard is largely without trenches. Currently strung with some heavier duty flats, the action is a little on the high side, the way I like it, and the tension is bout double to triple your average TI.

The electronic guts are good, one pot post is a little loose but not too noisy. The body was prisitine when I bought it but the soft plastic foam of the body dents so easy that I have put a couple of marks on it without any rough-housing. It is very impressionable material. Slide off a coach and lost a large chip of paint around near the jack one day too. Damn concrete floors.

Just recordings the three way switch and will post in a few the sounds of the Fender MIJ special Jazz.

I think the tone suffers from the lack of a solid body. True, balancing the Precision pickup with the Jazz is almost impossible but I manage best I can.

So, i don't like the tone of the guitar. Just doesn't seem to have a sweet spot in it. It sounds okay but nothing to write home Mom about. I believe that the foam body is reponsible for this. Debate on, but IME, that's it.

I would part it out and sell off the body, keep the neck, and buy a new or used body with some good wood density, and put the Precision or jazz pups, or both back into that body, perhaps changing the bridge to something more meaty (again, I believe that the tone comes in part form the anchoring bridge).

I don't think that part it out is a good idea. There are plenty of people out there who want this guitar just the way it is. the more factory the better. I am not one of them. HoweverI am not so "commercial" that I would blindly think of my own needs and desires over the life of an instrument, particularly one that has survived 25 years, older than many who may read this post.

BTW, i don't keep BG's that I don't play. Made that rule a coupla years ago, when I traded away a 76 Gibson Ripper, ebony fretless and a Carvin 5 for this baby. Just never developed a tone that I appreciated and could rely on.

Interested in your opinions on breaking it up versus selling it and moving on....

 

Not really a builder guy, and have respect for bg's that have historical prescence. Although this one def ain't a Leo special, it is pretty cool for the MIJ series with both a P and J pups. The P overpowers the J pup most of the time.

Think it going up,for sale....and I can get my DB out of the hospital.