Interesting 70s BBB Jag

[BoringPostcards]

I love it. It looks so good.

[Pacafeliz]

Good god that thing is wonderful. Perfect!!!

[zip73]

Congrats, that neck is very hard to find.

[RIORIO]

More pics !

[timbo86]

Love that thing! I wouldn't change it at all!

Interesting theory too. It's a shame Martin Jenner has died as that would possibly the only person who could honestly tell by who and when the Cobain Jaguar was modded.

[blackbox]

Here's another pic. Going to add more later up here.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvvLCoqn6OR ... _copy_link

[blackbox]

Switched out the bridge for a staytrem. Added mastery tailpiece because I prefer the play of the bar to the vintage unit.

[mgeek]

I've toyed with the idea of restoring it, though these are old mods and part of this guitar's history at this point, such that reversing them almost seems like a shame.

Do it! Loads of people were mutilating guitars in LA at the time, could have been anyone .

It's all down to personal taste, to an extent (I don't like the look or sound of these humbuckers) but as this is approaching 50, and is a rare colour it'd seem fitting to put it back to original.

[otis]

fantastic find!
What a great combination ; black and white pickguard on jags and jazzmasters looks just fantastic!
And a very nice and rare neck!
enjoy it!

[timbo86]

Out of interest, what material was used for the block inlays on these maple necks?

[Jaguar018]

Out of interest, what material was used for the block inlays on these maple necks?

Ground charcoal from burned unicorn bones.

[timbo86]

Out of interest, what material was used for the block inlays on these maple necks?

Ground charcoal from burned unicorn bones.

Must be pretty expensive then

[blackbox]

I've toyed with the idea of restoring it, though these are old mods and part of this guitar's history at this point, such that reversing them almost seems like a shame.

Do it! Loads of people were mutilating guitars in LA at the time, could have been anyone .

It's all down to personal taste, to an extent (I don't like the look or sound of these humbuckers) but as this is approaching 50, and is a rare colour it'd seem fitting to put it back to original.

Honestly, that was my thinking also at first.

But the more I explore this guitar, the more interesting I'm finding it. The toggle switch up where the rhythm control once was is now the pickup selector. The lower switches are now coil taps, with the middle switch as a phase reversal. Common 70s mods, but I'm actually really digging them. The pickups sound like 80s garbage of course, but even that is kind of charming to me.

I'm currently leaning against restoration, mainly because, of the almost 50 year history of this guitar, it only spent 8 or so as an original jaguar. I kind of feel like the mods are just part of the guitar now.

[Mechanical Birds]

How many people would have been doing mods like this to Jaguars in the late 70s and 80s?

A lot of people actually haha

Like I’d feel safe in assuming that at least half of all fender Jazzmasters from their original run ended up with at least one humbucker shoved into it. I don’t wanna say the mods on yrs are way different or anything, because I definitely see the similarity, but thinking, if only for a moment, about how many Fender Jaguars there are or were ever in Los Angeles is insane. It was ground zero for their whole kind of scene way back and we all know about the “back then there was no such thing as a vintage guitar, it was just a used guitar” thing.

Something I think about often is what you mentioned about nobody ever coming forward to take credit for the Cobain Jag mods. I mean, unless it was just some random guy who got it in, filled the requests given to him, and then moved on never really thinking about it again because honestly, Nirvana didn’t really break until probably at least a decade after the mods had been done, and if a tech was 40 when he worked on the guitar, it’s totally plausible that they were either dead by the time people could readily see the guitar, or that they never even knew who Nirvana was. It’s a weird thing for sure.


Either way that guitar looks fuckin bananas and I hope you get lots of cool stuff out of it. It looks awesome for sure.

Did we ever find out what the deal was with the Cobain Jag decal? I always assumed someone just made it because I’ve never ever seen it anywhere else.

[blackbox]

^That's my feeling also. The Cobain theory was just having some fun.

Also, now that I've had more time to play with this guitar, the mods are actually a lot more sophisticated and weird than the Cobain mods. This really is a wild guitar. A lot of fun actually.