Early 70's Jazzmasters

[mcatano]

I wonder if with these being Fenders top of the line guitars (well I guess the Starcaster was the actual top during the mid/late 70s) that they didn't select the lighter woods for them?
Seems to be a consensus that teles and strats from this period are usually quite a bit heavier than the 60s ones, doesn't seem to be the case for offsets.

There are some extremely heavy JMs from this era—the one I just posted with a 65/66 body is noticeably heavier than my two 63s. I would assume it's from the 7-piece fullerplast era where the wood is 100% luck of the draw.

[eggwheat]

I do think early 70's Jazzmasters are some of the worst I've owned. Build quality definitely nosedived by then. Sure there are outliers and a guitar made out of 8 pieces of nasty looking alder and covered over with a faux-burst can still sound great..

[nonemoreblack]

I have a 1980 JM neck on a parts build that has the big headstock, dot inlays, and no binding, so theoretically you could look for an 80/82 JM which is probably the rarest of rare birds. Though if you don't care about binding there are dots+binding 65/66 guitars out there with matched CBS-size headstocks.

Do you have any pics of this neck? I’ve always been fascinated by end-run jazzmasters but it seems like there’s barely any pics online.

Conveniently, it was sitting right next to me - apologies for the dirty floor and blown out photo.
The neck is stamped 1980, the body is a 65/66, the pickguard/pickups/tailpiece are pat pend era.

Cool, thanks for sharing. I really like the combo of black CBS logo with the dot neck.

[BeatleFred]

My 1971: