Vintage Fender Experts - Date My Neck Please (pretty-please)! :-)

Quadzilla

Quadzilla

Supporting Member
Feb 11, 2002
12,841
13,257
5,231
Maryland Burbs (horse-country)
www.thenewromance.com
#1
Hello all,

Just picked up this neck. Only stamp I can find on it is the typical "J TORRES" one on the back where it is up again the bolt side of the pocket. There are a couple of very faint markings on the part where the truss adjust is, but it's so little that it can't be made out. The truss adjust is the old phillip-head type at the neck heel.

Can one tell by the headstock logo (patent numbers?), fretboard radius or anything else? I'm assuming that it's a pre-1975 because of the truss adjust location, but I'm not sure how else to estimate it's age.

Let me know and thanks!
20170509_112449.jpg
20170509_112456.jpg
Neck Heel.jpg
 
#6
PolkaHero said:
1969-1972. Fender introduced this solid black logo in 1969 and by 1972 the headstocks had a walnut plug for the truss rod.
Click to expand...

It's a 1968-75 era neck. Without a stamp or the having the rest of the bass it came from, there's really no way to date it more specifically than that, because no changes were made between those years. By mid '75, Fender went to the "bullet" truss rod/3 bolt system for all Jazzes, so it's no later than '75 (note: the bullets/3 bolts started to appear in '74, so we see both styles alongside each other in '74 and '75). And it's not earlier than '68 because that's when the large script "TV" logo appeared. The patent #s did not change in this era. Also '68-70s tend to not have tinted headstocks (not all but most), so if it's tinted, as your neck appears to be, it's more likely early '70s.

As far as the walnut plugs go, they were never used on any rosewood necks until 1978/79... and by that time the plugs on rosewood necks were purely cosmetic. All vintage rosewood necks had the truss rods installed into the maple before the rosewood fretboards were glued on over the rod, so no need for a plug or the "skunk stripe"... As opposed to the (1-piece) all maple necks, in which the truss rod had to be installed from behind, and then they filled the truss rod channel with a skunk stripe and plugged the headstock after the rod was anchored in.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back