1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Discussion of vintage Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Bass VIs, Electric XIIs and any other offset-waist instruments.
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mumunuu
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1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by mumunuu » Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:47 am

This is the MusicMaster II that I recently purchased second-hand.

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The neck stamp is 1JUL65B, but I know 1 is for Jaguar.

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And there is a white line on the logo, and in some photos, there were products with white lines. Is this normal?

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Is this Brazilian rosewood? The color is closer to brown than black.

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The pickup is numbered '8' and has no date. What does this mean? Could it be the original product?
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https://github.com/mumunuu/1965-musicmaster/issues/1
(**If you go to this link, there are 33 pictures)

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Highnumbers
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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by Highnumbers » Sun Nov 27, 2022 2:22 pm

Looks all original to me, that decal appears correct and passes the blacklight test.

Best guess is that the factory just grabbed a Jaguar neck that day, either by accident or necessity. There is no difference between the necks.

The fretboard sure looks like Brazilian to me. That’s one of the quirky things about BRW is that it has a wide variety of shades, sometimes medium brown and sometimes dark chocolate, often with a swirly grain.

EIR has a more pronounced red tint to it, and I have not seen a Fender neck prior to 1966 with East Indian Rosewood.

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JSett
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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by JSett » Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:12 pm

Yeah, CBS were ramping up production significantly by mid 1965 and this neck (which likely got attached to the body late-summer as the date is the date the neck entered production, not finished) was probably just grabbed off the shelf to fill an order, or by mistake, makes no real difference.

My '64 Jaguar has a much lighter Brazilian Rosewood board too. I, until recently, had a '64 Mustang at the same time and it was super, super dark in comparison - almost black.

I concur with Highnumbers in that it all seems to check out to my eyes, congratulations. Looks like a nice little player.
Silly Rabbit, don't you know scooped mids are for kids?

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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by mgeek » Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:55 am

Didn't the budget range tend to have slab fingerboards or am i misremembering?

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GreenKnee
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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by GreenKnee » Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:40 am

mgeek wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:55 am
Didn't the budget range tend to have slab fingerboards or am i misremembering?
Yes I had a '65 Mustang neck that did have a slab board. But this date stamp has a '1' indicating it was intended to be a Jaguar neck.

Nice score, the guitar looks great.

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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by Britfingersisback » Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:11 am

GreenKnee wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 10:40 am
mgeek wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:55 am
Didn't the budget range tend to have slab fingerboards or am i misremembering?
Yes I had a '65 Mustang neck that did have a slab board. But this date stamp has a '1' indicating it was intended to be a Jaguar neck.

Nice score, the guitar looks great.
I'm not sure the budgets/models had anything to do with it. I thought the veneered boards were introduced to reduce timber usage across the entire line of instruments. Maybe someone can chip in and clarify?

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Highnumbers
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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by Highnumbers » Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:38 am

mgeek wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:55 am
Didn't the budget range tend to have slab fingerboards or am i misremembering?
The slab boards on Musicmaster/Duo Sonic models disappeared in mid 1962 at the same time they disappeared on all other models.

But at some later date ('65 or '66, I can't recall), slab boards reappeared on Musicmaster II / Duosonic II and Mustang models for a brief period, before going back to veneer boards.

The "budget" model thing never really factored because Fender never expected consumers to even notice the slab vs. veneer back then, let alone discuss it all 60 years later. It was just a production technique aimed at saving costly materials.

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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by Britfingersisback » Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:41 am

Interesting. Perhaps a pallet load were found somewhere and they decided to make good use of them.

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Re: 1965 MusicMaster II neck & pickup questions

Post by Nar B » Fri Jan 06, 2023 5:45 am

I've even seen a couple of 65 bound and dot jags with slab boards too.
The reason for it is lost now but it's just one of many strange happenings at the "new" Fender.
It's only ever seen On 24" scale necks too.

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