My guitar playing brother had a book with a title like "The Guitar Encyclopedia," pretty short but full of helpful info - I remember learning about chord shapes and the circle of fifths - and also lots of glossy photos, including pics of JMs, Jags, and other odds and ends Fender cranked out. Well, being a fan of music that didn't get much respect, I was immediately intrigued by these odd models. too Later we formed a band with a New Wave veteran from Boston who mostly played an early 60s JM, and also had an Electric XII - great guitar; when I found out the Velvet Underground guys played those I liked them even more.
I found this Jag in a Portland Oregon shop in 1989, for the princely sum of $200.
1962 Fender Jaguar - Album on Imgur A previous owner stripped the finish off, and I've always wondered what it originally was. There appears to be a bunch of black paint underneath the heel of the neck - maybe it was black? But you see a kind of gradated color in the cavity for the volume/tone knobs, so maybe it was a sunburst, which was stripped, painted, then the new finish was removed too? I've forgotten some of the details here. Maybe I stripped all the black paint off? It's been 30 years...I'm pretty certain the original tremolo arm was gone, leaving me with no qualms about bending the bajeezus out of the new one.
I can't find the original bridge - I stopped playing rock music in 1995, and forget if it was there. 5 of the original saddles seem to be on this hardtail bridge, which was screwed down - I do remember every book saying the JM/Jag bridge system went out of tune, didn't have sustain, etc, so I thought maybe here's a solution. I didn't know Mascis was using Tune-O-Matic bridges - I came up with a similiar solution on my own, it seems.
I also bought a pretty chunky Warmoth Strat neck for it, turning it into a JM with Jag body, sort of. I recall clearly driving up to their factory in Puyallup, Washington, to buy that thing. My brother, who kept playing this guitar and rock music in general, also reminded me I put a Fathead headstock plate on it, a big thing of brass that was supposed to increase sustain. Over the last couple of days I put everything back to normal, as far as I can - obviously the Schaller tuners aren't original; I can't find any Klusons - I never would have thrown something like that out. Trem-Lock has always been missing. I guess the neck plate was gone, too, but the body is penciled "2/62" - or "7/62" - in the trem cavity. I like the first one more! No more writing that I can find. And the neck was finished - on April Fool's Day.
I think the neck needs shimmed, the action is too high, and there's a fearsome buzz that goes away when I touch the plates, so some kind of grounding issue needs fixed. Playing and sounding nice otherwise! All of this attention for offset axes is crazy, I was really flabbergasted when the world went nuts for Nirvana and people suddenly were paying big bucks for these things that were nothing more than curiosities before.
