An Original Candy Apple Red 'Clay-Dot / Spaghetti Logo' Jazzmaster.

1964 Fender Jazzmaster.

This 1964 Candy Apple Red 'custom color 'Jazzmaster weighs 8.10 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body, one-piece maple neck with a very comfortable medium profile. Veneer rosewood fretboard with 21 frets and inlaid clay dot position markers. Matching Candy Apple Red maple headstock with decal with Fender "Spaghetti" logo in gold with black trim, "Jazzmaster" in black beside it, "With Synchronized Floating Tremolo" below that. and four patent numbers and one design number below that. "Offset / Contour / Body / Pat. Pending" decal at the ball end of the headstock. Single "butterfly" string tree with metal spacer. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons stamped on the underside "D-169400 / Patent No.". Four-bolt neck plate with serial number "L27661" between the top two screws. The neck is stamped "4 DEC 63B". Two hot Jazzmaster pickups (large white rectangular six-polepiece pickups) with very hot outputs of 8.36k and 7.73k. The neck pickup has "EP 6-5-64" written in pencil and the bridge pickup has "AG Jun 5 '64" stamped in yellow. Three-layer white / black / white 'green' celluloid pickguard with thirteen screws. Two controls (master volume, master tone) with white plastic knobs, plus three-way pickup selector switch and jack socket on the treble side of the pickguard, two roller knobs (volume, tone) plus two-way circuit selector (rhythm/lead) slide switch on the bass side of the pickguard. The potentiometers are dated "137 6410" (CTS, March 1964), "304 6408" and "304 6409" (Stackpole, February and March 1964). Jazzmaster bridge and integrated tailpiece and tremolo. The guitar has been expertly re-fretted with the correct gauge fretwire. There is an area of wear on the back (approximately 4 x 1 1/4 inches) and several other places on the back and sides of the body where that paint has chipped off. All said, this totally original pre-CBS guitar (apart from the re-fret) is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. Complete with the original tremolo arm. Housed in its original Fender cream Tolex case with black leather ends and dark orange plush lining (8.75).

This guitar has all the features of a '63 / early '64 Jazzmaster with clay dot position markers, the Fender 'Spaghetti' headstock logo and the 'cream' tolex case.

"The Jazzmaster first appeared in Fender sales material during 1958, and at some $50 more than the Strat it became the new top-of-the-line model... Immediately striking to the electric guitarist of 1958 was the Jazzmaster's unusual offset-waist body shape... For the first time on a Fender, the Jazzmaster featured a separate rosewood fingerboard glued to the customary maple neck... The Jazzmaster's floating vibrato system was new, too, and had a tricky 'lock-off' facility aimed at preventing tuning problems if a string should break. The controls were certainly elaborate for the time…A small slide-switch selected between two individual circuits, offering player-preset rhythm and lead sounds. The idea was a good one: the ability to set up a rhythm sound and a lead sound, and switch between them. But the system seemed over-complicated to players brought up on straightforward volume and tone controls. The sound of the Jazzmaster was richer and warmer than players were used to from Fender. The name Jazzmaster had not been chosen at random, for Fender was aiming this different tone at jazz players, who at the time largely preferred hollowbody electrics, and principally those by Gibson. However, jazz guitarists found little appeal in this new, rather difficult solidbody guitar -- and mainstream Fender players largely stayed with their Stratocasters and Telecasters" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 26). Much to Fender's surprise, however, the Jazzmaster turned into the best surf guitar ever conceived.