1974 Fretless Fender Jazz - Original neck?

Sep 13, 2020
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Is anyone familiar with early '70s fretless jazz necks? I have a J-bass that dates by serial number to 1974, but I can't find any pictures of fretless basses from that era to compare to, so I'm not sure the neck is original. The headstock logo is correct for 1974. The stamp on the heal is almost gone, but the first three numbers appear to be 020. The word WEBRIGHT is stamped on the base. I see from a Forum thread from 2006 that this has been seen before on an early '70s P-bass, but no one was sure of the neck provenance on that one. There seems to be a lot going on in the neck cavity on the body, which makes me wonder if the fretless neck was a conversion. (The Bartolinis and Badass were the upgrades everyone did in the '70s. It's all as it was when I bought it about 15 years ago.) Pictures below. Thanks!
Jazz neck heal.jpg
Jazz upright full (2).jpg
Jazz neck at base.jpg
Jazz body neck cavity.jpg
 
If the neck is original the fingerboard is not.

There are some rare 60s/70s fretless jazz basses out there, the fender bass illustrated history book has a beautiful pair with matching headstocks, but the fingerboards were plain and never that thick. Fretless as a regular catalog offering was available for P basses and most of what you’ll see from the 70s are fretless P basses.
 
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Thanks everyone! Searching Forum history for WEBRIGHT, he appears to have been a known Fender employee / inspector. (We B Right?) His stamp shows up on a number of mid-'70s Fenders in Forum posts. And the faded green numbers beginning 020 are consistent with another '70s Jazz in a post. So I'm confident in the neck, it's the fretboard that's suspect. Maybe a conversion from fretted? The clay dots are just like the dots on my AVRI '63 P, though...
 
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