1970s Jazzmasters In Custom Colors

[señormisterioso]

I have seen a lake placid blue or a Seafoam. Are there any other examples of custom colors out there?
Are they even more rare than pre-cbs, just because they weren't many made, surf was long over and there was no demand?

[Pacafeliz]

I sold this 1973 blonde/white one to Danocaster many years ago. That was a custom color, or wasn't it?

[Paco]

I sold this 1973 blonde/white one to Danocaster many years ago. That was a custom color, or wasn't it?

Pat, I still have the Fender Jazzmaster we traded long ago, the 76 in CAR (??), but I'm not sure if that is the original color. You got any idea? I'll post a pic here tomorrow.

I'm sure Fender did their share of custom colors and other experiments on these babies. I have seen original natural finishes on 70's jazzmasters a couple of times. Super rare tho.

[bterry]

^^ yeah looks like Oly White.

Anecdotally, half the 70s JMs I’ve seen have been in custom colors and half were in sunburst. They made so few overall, but IME the custom color to sunburst ratio was way higher than pre-cbs.

Before they sent the custom color brochure to dealers in mid 1961, custom color Jazzmasters were quite rare. Even the more typical Oly White and Blond custom colors were still fairly rare in 1960 and 1961, and by that time Fender had started sending those colors to dealers as part of regular stock.

The ones I seem to see a lot in the 70s are white, LPB and black...

[caivs]

I don't know if this is 100% accurate but here's a chart from : http://www.guitarhq.com/fenderc.html

[simonhpieman]

Pretty sure I saw a 73ish CAR once. I've seen 2 natural ones - they absolutely haunt my dreams. I NEED one!

[Paolo_ray]

Relevant bit from the above link:

'When I first started researching this article in 1996, there were five Fender custom colors (not including Candy Apple Red) that were no longer available from any paint manufacturer. These colors included Sonic Blue, Sherwood Green, Foam Green, Surf Green and Shell Pink. These colors were originally Duco (nitrocellulose) paint formulas that were never translated to acrylic versions. So when automotive nitrocellulose paint became unavailable in the early 1970's, so did these five colors.'

[señormisterioso]

^^ yeah looks like Oly White.

Anecdotally, half the 70s JMs I’ve seen have been in custom colors and half were in sunburst. They made so few overall, but IME the custom color to sunburst ratio was way higher than pre-cbs.

Before they sent the custom color brochure to dealers in mid 1961, custom color Jazzmasters were quite rare. Even the more typical Oly White and Blond custom colors were still fairly rare in 1960 and 1961, and by that time Fender had started sending those colors to dealers as part of regular stock.

The ones I seem to see a lot in the 70s are white, LPB and black...

Nice! I had to look around. Not a lot of examples on google images / pinterest basic search. A lot of images point back to this forum! good job.
That said, want to share this black one, the neck looks crazy (PRS crazy):
https://truevintageguitar.com/blogs/pre ... ster-black

There's also this 73' CAR, Which red hue has become borderline orange due to what I assume is the gold flake underneath. I'm sure some of you have seen it.:
https://www.vintage-guitar.de/detailsvi ... aster.html

Do they stop doing matching headstocks at some point and get back to body only? Is that just another example of CBS cutting corners ?

One last question for those who may own or may have own late cbs examples. Besides the paint job, how does the overall quality of the instrument compare? is it similar to the contrast of a pre-cbs strat vs a 70s strat or tele? I understand if this is slightly subjective, but we know now that some decreased in the quality of materials and corner cutting construction procedures were implemented.