question about pickguard differences... vintage years

[TweedBassman]

hey guys, quick question:

i'm looking for a tort guard for my '61 JM... there's a '65 guard up on the bay right now and the pics look a little dark/off to me. is there any difference between a early 60's and mid 60's tort guard? thanks!

[Jay]

There is a difference in the material that can mainly be seen in the sandwiching.  The green nitro guards go away around '65 give or take and so you can see those differences in the layering and on the underside of a tortoise guard.  It's more noticeable on the white guards because they don't turn green obviously.  The older nitro guards have a black layer that is more fuzzy looking...  almost as if the minty layers and black layer are bleeding together a bit.  This makes the later tort guards look as if the black layer is crisper and thinner.  As far as the tort itself, there are some differences over the decade (more noticeable around 68-69) but for the most part there is a lot of variance in color from darker to lighter in any given year and I'm sure based on the environmental conditions the guard had been subjected too.  They do seem to generally get darker as the decade progresses but its hard to use that as a guage for year.  There are also the meatball guards to consider as they tend to start showing up randomly in around '66.  Do a search for meatball and you should get a few photo samples in the results.

[TweedBassman]

thanks for the info!

man, the prices on these have really jumped.