Lake Placid Blue Jazzmaster

This great surfing guitar with matching headstock, weighs just 8.10 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body, bound maple neck, and rosewood veneer fretboard with 21 wide frets and clay dot position markers. Decal headstock logo with "Fender" in gold with black trim, "Jazzmaster" and "Offset Contour Body Pat. Pending" in black, and "With Synchronized Floating Tremolo" and six patent numbers in black in three lines below. Single "butterfly" string tree with nylon spacer. Neck stamped 13 FEB 1966 B, and pencil # 8 in neck pocket. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons. Serial number 145601 on neckplate. Two large white rectangular six-polepiece pickups with balanced outputs of 6.25k and 6.31k. Pots dated 137 65 18 (May 1965). Three-layer (white/black/white) celluloid pickguard. Two controls (master volume, master tone) with white plastic knobs plus three-way selector switch and jack socket on the treble side of the pickguard, two roller knobs (volume, tone) plus two-way slide switch on the bass side of the pickguard. Jazzmaster bridge and integrated tailpiece and tremolo. With the original bridge cover. An excellent example, the Lake Placid Blue finish on this guitar is totally unfaded, with only a small area (approximately 1 1/4 x 5/8 inches) chipped away on the lower treble bout, otherwise in exceptionally fine and totally original condition. Housed in its original Fender black hardshell case with orange plush lining (8.75).

"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.