A Rare and Near Mint Mid-Sixties Dakota Red Jaguar

1965 Fender Jaguar.

This Custom Color, solid alder body, 13 3/4-inch-wide Jaguar weighs 8.70 lbs. One-piece bound maple neck, and curved veneer rosewood fretboard with 22 original thin frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with matching "Dakota Red" finish and 'transitional decal with "Fender" in gold with black trim and "Pat. 2,960,900  2,972,923  3,143,028  2,741,146  Des 186,826 Pat Pend" underneath, and "Offset Contour Body" decal at the ball end of the headstock. Single "butterfly" string tree with nylon spacer. The neck is stamped "1 SEP 65B." Four-bolt neck plate with serial number "123638" between the top two screws. Individual Fender "F" tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Two white oblong Strat-like pickups with notched metal side plates and outputs of 5.97k and 5.98k. Three-layer white over black plastic pickguard with ten screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) and jack socket on lower metal plate adjoining pickguard on the treble side, circuit selector (rhythm/lead) slide switch and two roller controls (one volume, one tone) on upper metal plate adjoining pickguard on the bass side, and three pickup selector slide switches on metal plate inset into the pickguard on the treble side. The potentiometers are stamped "304 6530" (Stackpole July 1965). Black plastic Jaguar knobs with white markings. Jazzmaster-type floating tremolo and bridge with adjustable mute. This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. There are three very, very small surface chips (top edge of treble-horn, top edge just above strap-pin and lower treble edge) where the fullaplast primer is showing through. The sponge for the mute has as usual dried-out. This is a wonderful example of this totally original and very rare custom-color Jaguar -- not at all faded. There is some light playing wear to the first five original frets. Complete with the original tremolo arm, bridge cover and 12 page hang-tag instruction manual with matching serial number. Housed in its original Fender three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with black leather ends and dark orange plush lining (9.25).

Dakota Red was the 1958 Cadillac color and was used by Fender from 1960 - 1969.

"Not content with the relatively expensive Jazzmaster, Fender introduced a new top-of-the-line model in 1962: the Jaguar. [The pricelist offered a basic Sunburst Jaguar at $379.50; a similar Jazzmaster was $349.50]. Another offset-waist multi-control instrument, the Jag seemed an attractive proposition, but still failed to dent the supremacy of Fender's dynamic duo, the Tele and the Strat...The Jag used a similar offset-waist body shape to the earlier Jazzmaster, and also shared that guitar's separate bridge and vibrato unit, although the Jaguar had the addition of a spring-loaded string mute at the bridge. Fender rather optimistically believed that players would prefer a mechanical string mute to the natural edge-of-the-hand method. They did not. There were some notable differences between the Jaguar and Jazzmaster. Visually, the Jag had distinctive chromed control panels, and was the first Fender with 22 frets. Its 24" (610mm) scale-length ('faster, more comfortable') was shorter than the Fender standard of 25" (635mm) and closer to that of Gibson. It gave the Jag a different playing feel compared to other Fenders. The Jaguar had better pickups than the Jazzmaster. They looked much like Strat units but had metal shielding added at the base and sides, no doubt as a response to the criticisms of the Jazzmaster's tendency to noisiness. The Jag's electrics were yet more complex than the Jazzmaster's, using the same rhythm circuit but adding a trio of lead-circuit switches...The Jaguar was offered from the start in four different neck widths, one a size narrower and two wider than normal (coded A, B, C or D, from narrowest to widest, with 'normal' B the most common)" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 36).