Here's an early 1963 Fender Jazzmaster in an early 3-color sunburst finish. This early offset was made at the original Fender factory in Fullerton, California U.S.A. in March of 1963. Neck stamp is perfect and the potentiometers date to 9th week of 1963 (late February/early March) corresponding nicely. The guitar is in 100% original condition. It is set up, intonated and it needs nothing-it is ready to go.
The body features deep contours front and rear. The 3-color sunburst has a beautiful brilliant appearance and the red is bright and unfaded. There is handling wear all over the face sides and back of the body-see photos. The Mojo is very impressive and although the guitar was clearly used it was not abused. The neck joint is solid and an excellent fitment. The neck itself is super straight with no issues. The neck is very smooth and feels excellent. The profile is best described as a vintage C. The neck measures .819" deep at the 1st fret and .969" deep at the 12th fret. The nut is nice and wide and measures 1.66". The tuners all function well and the headstock and Pre-CBS "spaghetti" logo display excellent with just a touch of patina. The Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard has amazing grain and feels super soft. Although difficult to photograph, there are two spots that resemble feathers in the grain-it looks amazing and just plain spiritual. Thankfully, this guitar had flat wounds on it its whole life-so fret wear was pretty much non-existent when it came into our possession. The frets are in excellent condition and just required the lightest of polishing to look as clean and pretty as they do-see photos. The action is currently set fairly low for an easy playing experience. The bridge is fully adjustable so if you prefer a higher action-it can accommodate easily. Currently, the string height is .010" at the 1st fret and .045" at the 12th fret. The guitar plays easily up and down the fingerboard with no dead spots anywhere. It plays like butter!
The pickups both have an excellent signal and balanced output. The Neck position measures 7.87 ohms and the Bridge measures 8.41 ohms. As with all of the rest of the guitar-the whole wiring harness, pickups, and potentiometers are original. Two of the wires have been re-soldered for a better connection. The pickguard has a tiny crack in it near the neck pickup on the treble side-it causes no issues, just a cosmetic (if even that). The pickguard is very nicely figured-see photos. There is minimal lifting or warpage-it is pretty nice for an old piece of cellulose. The controls all function and the tone is perfect! The vibrato is smooth and functions flawlessly.
The guitar is very fun to play and super comfortable. The big deep contours yield a soft feel. The weight is really light for such a big guitar: this one only weighs 7.96 lbs.
It feels great on a strap or in your lap. This is one of those guitars that just feels right. Which makes perfect sense. Many people believe that the best guitars ever to come out of the Fender factory were those from 1962-1964 with 1963 being perfectly in the middle. I've had over 1000 vintage Fender guitars from this era offer the years and I can attest to the above statement. I've really never had a bad one or even an average one from this era. They really hit their stride at this point.
