'65(?) Jazzmaster

[Danny W.]

For those of you enjoying my seemingly endless thread in the Introductions section ("The Jag & I"), you might remember early on that I mentioned having a Jazzmaster for a very short time (For those who haven't read that thread--why not? Go do it now! )

I actually have a photo of the JM--as far as I know, this is the only one, taken sometime in '73 or '74. The color is not original!

Anyway, here it is. Sorry for the poor quality--it's from a very underexposed print.



Danny W.

[rickenmetal]

That's the older type of headstock, I think they changed it sometime in 1965, so it's 1965 or earlier.

Nice job on the coloring, I don't think I'd even be good enough in Photoshop to do that.

[fuzzking]

Hello Danny,

good to hear from you again!

man you must miss this one, don't you?

[Soiouz]

That's the older type of headstock, I think they changed it sometime in 1965, so it's 1965 or earlier.

Nice job on the coloring, I don't think I'd even be good enough in Photoshop to do that.

You're right and it's a slab board neck, so it is from 1960-1962.

[Danny W.]

Hello Danny,

good to hear from you again!

man you must miss this one, don't you?

This guitar was an unplayable mess when I bought it. In an apparent “summer of love” moment, some previous owner had painted it a mix of lemon and lime house paint--the effect wasn’t so much psychedelic as bilious. The hardware was completely corroded and frozen. The guitar had apparently done double duty as a hockey stick, judging from the numerous dings, gouges and scratches on the body. Oddly, the neck was unblemished, but it did suffer from excessive relief even with the truss rod tight and no string tension on it. I think the frets were okay.

I immediately field-stripped it, and dumped all the hardware into a can that I filled with industrial-strength solvent-degreaser. The neck went into a couple of bench vises with some padding on the jaws.

At this point I should tell you how I lovingly restored the body to its original factory color (whatever that was) using NOS paints, hand rubbing each layer until even Leo couldn’t tell it wasn’t an original finish. That would be a complete lie, though. The company I worked for back then had an extremely skilled and capable model shop and a similarly-skilled production painting facility--I took the body to the head of the model shop along with some catalog photos of Jazzmasters and told him to make it look just like that. I can’t remember how it came to be black, but I suspect it was either going to be that or hammertone gray.

In about a week I had the finished body back. If I ever knew what was under the new black paint, I don’t remember now, but I think there was a bunch of body filler involved. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty, but the black paint covered it perfectly.

By that time I had gotten the neck straight with the truss rod backed off, and had scrubbed off all the rust and corrosion from the hardware. It’s possible I used some of the spare bridge parts from my Jaguar days to finish it up. In any case, I put it all back together, shimmed the neck to a good angle, set it up and found out that I had a good-playing and -sounding guitar.

I had not ever intended to keep it, though. While I can’t remember exactly, I think there was something about the neck profile I didn’t care for, or maybe it was just that I still remembered how hard it had been to find a buyer for my Jaguar. Whatever the reason, I sold it right away. I can’t remember if I had already had a buyer for it or just got lucky.

It occurred to me after I started this topic to check the record book I had kept from the early ‘70’s to late ‘90’s for many of my musical activities, which includes a ledger of all the stuff I bought and sold. Sure enough, it’s in there. I bought it on Sept. 15, 1976 for $90 and sold it on Sept. 30, 1976 for $175. The purchase price included a Heathkit TA-16 amp and a Jax Fuzz-Wah--I don’t know what became of those. In fact, I don't even remember ever owning them.

I know that many of you lovingly document every phase of a vintage restoration and would like to see more photos of this one. If you look at the prices above, though, you’ll see that back then this was a guitar of no particular value or interest to anyone. It was still possible to find NOS ones from the ‘60’s hanging in music store windows as sign holders. Would I like to have it now? Sure, but at the time I probably was thrilled to get it sold so quickly.

Danny W.