Vintage Fenders

[Geek99]

8 hours ago, Johncee said:

A lot of 70s P's and J's seem to have misaligned necks like this. Is that something that can be easily fixed, or is it not something to be concerned about?

I had this, was just a slightly misaligned neck screw hole. I widened it and refitted 

[Reggaebass]

8 hours ago, Johncee said:

A lot of 70s P's and J's seem to have misaligned necks like this. Is that something that can be easily fixed, or is it not something to be concerned about?

It’s usually an easy fix by just slackening the screws off and moving it over slightly, the neck was probably removed for authentication of the neck stamp 

[Sparky Mark]

13 hours ago, Johncee said:

A lot of 70s P's and J's seem to have misaligned necks like this. Is that something that can be easily fixed, or is it not something to be concerned about?

I assume you are referring to the strings being aligned over to the E string side of the neck? You should be concerned if you think that, in this instance, the E string will roll off the neck when playing. Realignment of the neck may or may not be easy, depending on how tight the neck pocket is. It could just be a matter of loosening the neck plate screws and moving the neck. However, my experience is that necks usually return to there initial position when the screws are re-tightened.

[OliverBlackman]

Contextually reasonably priced 62 refin jazz in bass bros. Not something I can justify and my least favourite custom colour, but I’m sure it will garner interest quickly.

https://bassbros.co.uk/product/1962-fender-jazz-bass/

[Noisyjon]

Refretted but pretty original and mojo'd up '65 Jazz for £7.5k here at Charlie Chandler's Guitar Experience (no affiliations BTW!)

https://ccgx.co.uk/product/fender-jazz-bass-3-tone-sunburst-1965/

[Reggaebass]

56 minutes ago, Noisyjon said:

Refretted but pretty original and mojo'd up '65 Jazz for £7.5k here at Charlie Chandler's Guitar Experience (no affiliations BTW!)

https://ccgx.co.uk/product/fender-jazz-bass-3-tone-sunburst-1965/

I’m sure I’ve seen that one before somewhere a few years back as I remember the play wear, I’m not keen on the missing part of the logo, looks like a nice jazz though 

[Reggaebass]

Andy B has got a nice 71 P in , very clean looking and all original , 

https://www.andybaxterbass.com/products/1971-fender-precision-bass-sunburst-4

 

the 69 he has seems priced quite high to me considering the rewound pickup, no covers or thumbrest and no original case 

Edited May 10 by Reggaebass

[peteb]

1 hour ago, Reggaebass said:

Andy B has got a nice 71 P in , very clean looking and all original , 

https://www.andybaxterbass.com/products/1971-fender-precision-bass-sunburst-4

 

 

That 71P looks really nice and not too ridiculously priced! 

 

Edited May 10 by peteb

[Reggaebass]

4 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

That 71P looks really nice and not too ridiculously priced! 

 

Definitely in good shape , mine has much more wear than that one, I think it will sell easily 

[Burns-bass]

3 hours ago, Noisyjon said:

Refretted but pretty original and mojo'd up '65 Jazz for £7.5k here at Charlie Chandler's Guitar Experience (no affiliations BTW!)

https://ccgx.co.uk/product/fender-jazz-bass-3-tone-sunburst-1965/

Repro bridge as well. If the shop can’t spot that not sure I’d have confidence in their ability to authenticate the whole thing.

[Beedster]

47 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Repro bridge as well. If the shop can’t spot that not sure I’d have confidence in their ability to authenticate the whole thing.

There’s a few things look less than authentic on that bass to be honest

[Burns-bass]

3 minutes ago, Beedster said:

There’s a few things look less than authentic on that bass to be honest

I’d never justify £7.5k on a bass but if I did I’d be at Andy Baxter.

[Misdee]

3 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

Andy B has got a nice 71 P in , very clean looking and all original , 

https://www.andybaxterbass.com/products/1971-fender-precision-bass-sunburst-4

 

the 69 he has seems priced quite high to me considering the rewound pickup, no covers or thumbrest and no original case 

That '71 is a beautiful bass and it sounds good, too.  Lightweight, B-neck, just about perfect for me in every respect. 

 

 

Edited May 10 by Misdee

[rodney72a]

7 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

Contextually reasonably priced 62 refin jazz in bass bros. Not something I can justify and my least favourite custom colour, but I’m sure it will garner interest quickly.

https://bassbros.co.uk/product/1962-fender-jazz-bass/

 

"The neck is stamped 6-62 (June 1962)." 

 

That's a curious one. 6-62 would be the format for a handwritten date but by June 1962 you would usually see an actual stamp which would read 7 JUN 62 A.

[OliverBlackman]

54 minutes ago, rodney72a said:

 

"The neck is stamped 6-62 (June 1962)." 

 

That's a curious one. 6-62 would be the format for a handwritten date but by June 1962 you would usually see an actual stamp which would read 7 JUN 62 A.

I can’t remember if it should be stamped or not for this age, but if the neck has been off you’d think it would have been photographed and included in the advert. This is where Andy Baxter is at the forefront of the vintage market.

[Burns-bass]

8 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

I can’t remember if it should be stamped or not for this age, but if the neck has been off you’d think it would have been photographed and included in the advert. This is where Andy Baxter is at the forefront of the vintage market.

Apparently you can request all the images but I agree. (Sometimes a CMS only allows you to upload a limited number of images.)

 

This one was advertised before then removed. Too many unknowns with a refin like this to invest.

[Noisyjon]

On 10/05/2024 at 19:02, Burns-bass said:

Repro bridge as well. If the shop can’t spot that not sure I’d have confidence in their ability to authenticate the whole thing.

 

On 10/05/2024 at 19:50, Beedster said:

There’s a few things look less than authentic on that bass to be honest

 

This is why I love BC!

 

Would you 2 fine fellows mind expanding a bit on what the giveaways are?

I'm genuinely interested and love building up my knowledge on this type of stuff.

 

Cheers,

Jon

 

[rwillett]

^ This

[Belka]

Apart from the replacement bridge and tuners the rest of that bass looks legit to me. The tuners are obviously new - you can tell by the thread being a lot longer than on original pre-CBS tuners. The bridge is obviously a replacement as up until around '67-68 the saddles were threaded. The bridge on this bass where the saddles aren't threaded but are adjusted with a screwdriver rather than an Allen key were used from around '68-83.

 

The only other thing is the missing decals on the neck, but it does look genuine as it has the correct round laminate fingerboard. These are hard to fake as outside of Fender from 1962-1983, nobody really made them (I have seen a couple on lawsuit era Japanese Tokais, perhaps, and Fender brought them back for the 2013-2017 AVRI line. Musikraft will still make them too). 

 

Interestingly this bass appears to have a Padauk fingerboard, which Fender used on a handful of basses in 1965 when they stopped using Brazilian rosewood but before they switched to Indian  - this could make it more attractive to buyers.

 

Electronics look correct, the sunburst looks right for the era, and the scratchplate looks fine too.    

[Reggaebass]

One thing that stood out a bit for me was how new the neck stamp looked and the shape of the 7, I’m not saying it’s not genuine but there’s no fading at all there, maybe it’s the picture 

[Woodinblack]

I think it is just an overprint, but as it is an area that does not have any light getting in, I am not sure how much fading is to be expected. I have certainly seen older writing just as prominent if kept away from UV sources.

[Beedster]

4 hours ago, Noisyjon said:

 

 

This is why I love BC!

 

Would you 2 fine fellows mind expanding a bit on what the giveaways are?

I'm genuinely interested and love building up my knowledge on this type of stuff.

 

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

Ha ha, there are far moore knowledgable people than me on this forum, but I've owned a few 60's Fenders, and have spent an embarrasing amount of time looking at them, trying them out, researching them, and talking about them!

 

But to this bass; it could be 100% lewit but there are simply too many questions about the neck for me. When I saw the first photo my strong and immediate gut feel was 'Mmmm, neck's wrong'. OK, it might be a very unusual/rare board that's throwing me, although it looks rather unplayed even for a paler hardwood for a 60-year old board to my eye. But that the potentially rare board is part of a neck with at least two other potential signs of non-originality leaves me feeling suspicious. A couple of visits to dealers of vintage basses around 15 years ago made me realise that there's not only a lot of dodgy basses out there, but that the owners - not always as expert as they'd have you believe and often not as honest either - have all sorts of stories to cover for what in real terms were deal-breaking deviations from originality and even authenticity. A memorable comment from a London-based shop/dealer was something along the lines "If I took the neck off to show you the neck stamp it would devalue the instrument and i'm not prepared to do that just because you don't trust me. The person I bought it from - who I've known for years - assured me that it's a June 1964 instrument and that's good enough for me.....".

[Beedster]

2 hours ago, Beedster said:

A couple of visits to dealers of vintage basses around 15 years ago made me realise that there's not only a lot of dodgy basses out there, but that the owners - not always as expert as they'd have you believe and often not as honest either - have all sorts of stories to cover for what in real terms were deal-breaking deviations from originality and even authenticity. A memorable comment from a London-based shop/dealer was something along the lines "If I took the neck off to show you the neck stamp it would devalue the instrument and i'm not prepared to do that just because you don't trust me. The person I bought it from - who I've known for years - assured me that it's a June 1964 instrument and that's good enough for me.....".

 

Ha ha, I forgot to mention the key fact; I found out a few months later when I bought my (real) June '64, that the bass in question most certainly wasn't a June '64 Precision, just a bitsa albeit built mostly of original '60's parts  

Edited May 13 by Beedster

[Belka]

I don't doubt that there are dodgy guitars out there but in most cases the problem is actually that they are cut and shuts, they're non original custom colours, or they're stolen (or any combination of the three). Faking an entire instrument or even neck is going to be a pretty rare occurrence.

 

The paler padauk necks really were a thing in 1965. It's a very hard wood which could account for why it looks new. There are more examples, all from 1965 in the pictures below, including one showing a prominent unfaded neck stamp. 

 

 

Edited May 13 by Belka

[Belka]

Actually, the two stamps show the same distortion in the '7','5'and 'A'. (the one above is a bass sold on Talkbass, the lower picture is the one at Charlie Chandler's). Same month too. I'm pretty sure that neck is legit.

Edited May 13 by Belka