Probably the Finest '65 Candy Apple Red Jaguar Extant

1965 Fender Jaguar.

This spectacular 13 3/4-inch-wide 'custom-color' Jaguar weighs just 8.40 lbs.  Solid alder contoured body. One-piece maple neck with a "B" nut width of 1 5/8 inches, a scale length of 24 inches and a nice medium profile. Curved veneer rosewood fretboard with 22 original medium frets and inlaid pearloid dot position markers. Headstock with matching "Candy Apple Red" finish and decal with "Fender" logo in gold with black trim, "Jaguar" in black beside it, and four patent numbers in black below. "Offset Contour Body" decal at the ball end of the headstock. Single "butterfly" string tree. The neck is stamped "1 MAY 65B." Four-bolt neck plate with serial number "L82325" between the top two screws. Individual double-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons and "D-169400 / Patent No." stamped on the underside. Two white oblong Strat-like pickups with notched metal side plates with perfectly matched outputs of 6.88k and 6.33k. Four-layer tortoiseshell over white and 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 "137 6519" (CTS, May 1965). Black plastic Jaguar knobs with white markings. Jazzmaster-type floating tremolo and bridge with adjustable mute. This guitar is in absolutely mint, unplayed, and as new condition with the most beautiful candy apple red over silver finish that we have ever seen. Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover. Also lots of 'case-candy' including the original hang-tag with matching serial number, original black leather guitar strap, original gray guitar lead etc. Housed in the original Fender two-latch rectangular black hardshell case with orange plush lining (9.00).

We have never seen another Candy Apple Red Jaguar with a tortoiseshell pickguard. The 'tortoise' pickguards were used on the sunburst, see-thru blond and olympic white guitars between 1962 and 1965. We would assume that this absolutely mint example must have been a factory 'special order'.

"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).

Candy Apple Red, introduced in 1963, "could be described as Fender's only true Custom Color as it was an original Fender 'mix' and not -- like most of the others -- a colour adopted from an existing automobile paint shade" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 34). The undercoat on the body of this guitar is the earlier silver version, which gives a much brighter red color.