I got an excellent deal on this beauty worth approximately 782 USD. I bought my first Jazzmaster 6 years ago via Ebay, which was a used MIJ, and it arrived with horrible pickups, a rusty bridge and strings from hell. On that occasion I had to mod pretty much everything, so I had somewhat lower expectations this time. Man, I was wrong – the build feels extremely solid, and the sound is very impressive. I was prepared to switch the knobs to 500k, but I changed my mind: the sonic palette is incredibly versatile, from chiming brights to warm jazzy tones. Sonically it's one of the most versatile and sensitive guitars I ever played, and I can't wait to get to the practice room and see how it fits in my band. Also, this guitar has incredible sustain, at least compared to my MIJ.
Once the tremolo arm is installed, it fits nice and tight, however, it badly detunes the guitar, and the range of motion is very limited. I'll definitely upgrade to a Staytrem tremolo, which worked wonders on my MIJ. Bridge will be updated too – I was tempted to keep the original, as I decided to switch to 12-52 GHS strings which seemed to fit in nicely, but the bridge started buzzing only after a few days. Action is a little high for my taste at the moment (no hex key was included), though I won't mess with it until I swapped the tremolo arm and the bridge. That's when the fun will truly begin.
The photo below is not the best, but two of my favorite things are included – autumn sunshine and my Vintera
