GAS!!!

[mynameisjonas]

today is a good day. the sun is shining, i´m free from work and i´ve got all the christmas shopping behind me.
so i decided to go check out the guitar shops, since i haven´t done that in a while.
the first shop i walked into had a beautiful, very worn, sorta BMM/CAR servicemans´s JM. it was a lovely guitar. even though it didn´t have a truss rod the neck was straight as an arrow and it played like a dream. full resonant sound with lots of sustain too.
they hadn´t set a price for it yet, but they said it would probably be pretty cheap. i´m gonna check up on it in a few days.

i walk into the next shop and see a mint condition early aluminum neck kramer i played it for a while, and then moved further in to the shop. found a travis bean bass , played that for a while and looked round the corner... and there it was.

a 1959 sunburst goldguard jazzmaster
the body had some kind of stamp on the front and it was refinished, the back of the neck had been refinished too, the bridge was new (probably CIJ or allparts), and the switch tip was also new.
playing it felt like coming home. i neeeeeeed that guitar!!
the price was 34000 SEK = $4900, which isn´t too crazy by swedish standards. unfortunately it´s a hell of a lot more than i can afford to spend, but if i save up for 2-3  (or maybe 4 ) months i might be able to snag it if it´s still there.
it´s the first time i have ever held a goldguard JM in my hands

too bad i didn´t have my camera with me...

[Soiouz]

 

I totally understand why you are having GAS!..........




The shops around here all feel like they're being "filtered" somehow, so finding so many good guitars at once is now almost impossible..

There's a bunch of big collectors in the Montreal area and they all seem to have priority somehow.  I know one of them who has complete "families" of Fender products for each year from 1961 to 1966.....

I mean, a 1959 gold guard JM would not even make it in a store. One of those collector will get a phone call and the guitar will be sold right away.

[zhivago]

a 1959 sunburst goldguard jazzmaster

playing it felt like coming home. i neeeeeeed that guitar!!

that's fantastic, Jonas!

try and move heaven and earth to get it...that "coming home" feeling doesn't come too often!!!!

[fullerplast]

Thats some great finds! Don't you love the way the adrenaline starts flowing when you spot something good?

P.S. I would be interested in the Servicemans JM if you're not.... 

[mynameisjonas]

I mean, a 1959 gold guard JM would not even make it in a store. One of those collector will get a phone call and the guitar will be sold right away.

yeah that´s what usually happens here too, but i seemed like this one had been there for a while. the collector types probably thought it wasn´t original enough, the average guitar player wants a strat, and the rest of us are broke

try and move heaven and earth to get it...that "coming home" feeling doesn't come too often!!!!

yeah i know. i´m going to sell my SF twin, that´ll get me almost a 1/3 of the way (if i manage to talk the price on the JM down a bit), and then i guess i´ll just have to live on instant noodles until it´s mine

Thats some great finds! Don't you love the way the adrenaline starts flowing when you spot something good?

P.S. I would be interested in the Servicemans JM if you're not.... 

it sure is a great feeling, i feel 10 years younger

i´m going to get back to the guys with the serviceman´s JM in a few days. i have no idea what their definition of cheap is, the guy i talked to didn´t want to give me even an estimate before he talked to his boss. how much would you say it could be worth?

[fullerplast]

The actual worth is SO relative. IMO, even though it plays well, it wouldn't be worth more than $150-200. But some idiot on ebay would probably pay $500 for it. Plus factoring in it's current location and the prices there, I would not even be qualifed to guess.

If you don't want it, I would like to have it... but only if it was "US-cheap" and not "Sweden-cheap"... hehe.

I wouldn't have mentioned it at all, but I was thinking that if you're going to go for the '59 you wouldn't want to be wasting some of the proceeds on the fake one...

[mynameisjonas]

my guess is that it´s going to be "sweden-cheap" which is not even remotely close to "US-cheap"
you know, the standard price for a new AVRI JM is about $3k over here...

[fullerplast]

I'd still be interested to know though.

Any chance of a pic when you go back? I've never seen a complete Serviceman's JM. I've seen just about any/everything else they made, but not JMs. As far as they go, I've only seen parts of them on the bay.

How realistic was it? Anything cheesy about it? (of course, the cheese is most of the charm to me)...

[mezcalhead]

standard price for a new AVRI JM is about $3k over here...

.. which makes that '59 almost seem like a bargain!

Apart from the bridge and the switch-tip, your description fits my '59 as well. Very nice guitars. Did it have a fairly thin neck?

BTW I don't think bridges are that hard to come by ... Please tell me you wouldn't rout it out for a tune-o-matic!?

[mynameisjonas]

I'd still be interested to know though.

Any chance of a pic when you go back? I've never seen a complete Serviceman's JM. I've seen just about any/everything else they made, but not JMs. As far as they go, I've only seen parts of them on the bay.
b
How realistic was it? Anything cheesy about it? (of course, the cheese is most of the charm to me)...

i have to say it was pretty realistic. at first glance i thought it was a real one. but i quickly noticed it did look a bit off. the headstock looked more like a jag, the knobs were like white jag knobs but smaller, the switch was only 2-way and looked totally wrong, the tremplate was a bit too small and had no lock. it had a brand new mustang bridge. but the best part was that the black "ply" in the pickguard was painted along the edges

standard price for a new AVRI JM is about $3k over here...

.. which makes that '59 almost seem like a bargain!

Apart from the bridge and the switch-tip, your description fits my '59 as well. Very nice guitars. Did it have a fairly thin neck?

BTW I don't think bridges are that hard to come by ... Please tell me you wouldn't rout it out for a tune-o-matic!?

god no! i wouldn´t dream of it
my '59 body was already maimed when i bought it, but it came with the original bridge (and thimbles), so i have the bridge issue covered.

as for the bargain part, i had expected it to be a lot more expensive. i´ve seen several refinished CBS JMs go for more than that, and that was years ago. which is pretty logical when you think about it. since the US dollar is much cheaper now than it was a few years ago, all these swedish dealers go over there and buy vintage guitars for less SEK than they used to, even though the US prices are higher than before.

edit: forgot about the neck... yes, it was pretty thin, which i usually don´t like, but the profile was so nice it didn´t bother me one bit.

[Soiouz]

Any update on these guitars that were giving you GAS!?


Is the gold guard JM still there?

[djetz]

my guess is that it´s going to be "sweden-cheap" which is not even remotely close to "US-cheap"
you know, the standard price for a new AVRI JM is about $3k over here...

Here (Australia) too. There's US prices and "everywhere else" prices.

Still, the internet makes some things more accessable than they once were. I  doubt I will ever buy a guitar from an Australian retailer again. When you consider that you can pay shipping from the other side of the planet and still end up paying less than half the local retail price...

Anyway, good luck with the vintage Jazzmaster, and needless to say: if you get it, we want pictures. If you get a chance, I think everyone would like to see some photos of the Serviceman's JM too. Spin them a line in the shop and they might let you take some shots.

[sookwinder]

I  doubt I will ever buy a guitar from an Australian retailer again.

you have doubts ?

I lost mine when I was able to get my first jaguar (an  AV fiesta) into Australia, including shipping, insurrance, customs and aqist for less than 60% of what Fender Australia were selling them here for, and that was will a lower AU$$$ than we have now.

Just looked up Venue Music up in sydney (they are pretty cheap / street prices ) and a japanese jaguar still costs AU$1500  (US$1125 on current exchange rates).  Again you can buy a jaguar from Japan - retail prices (new),  pay all the shipping/duties/etc/etc and still get it for under AU$1000

I have no problem with companies/francises making a profit ... everyone has to eat....  but given that even though the Aussie $$ had increased in  value 50%  (from AU$1=US$0.50 to AU$1=US$0.75) some years back, it still took Fender Australia almost 2 years to drop ANY of their prices and it ain't like they keep a large stock of OFFSET guitars in storage, just waiting for the ressurgance in surf music, now do they ?