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Post subject: No neck stamp on my 73 Jazz bass ??
Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 5:40 am
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Hobbyist
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Hi all, my 73 Jazz bass has no date stamp on the butt of the neck.
The backing plate tells me '73 but I don't know enough about pots to date it from them.
I've had it for over 20 years and it's a beautiful player but was just wondering if any of these early 70's Jazz Basses actually had no date stamp on them at all?
The headstock and binding etc have all the patina of a Bass from that era and there's no makings or signatures on the back of the neck where it slots into the body pocket.
It had been refinished when I bought it and the neck pocket has been over sprayed with the Olympic White re-fin.
Any thoughts gents ??
Thanks in advance.


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Post subject: Re: No neck stamp on my 73 Jazz bass ??
Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 11:39 am
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Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:12 pm
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Location: Albemarle, NC
Neck code could have faded out. Probably less than 25% of the 60's and 70's ones are fully legible now.

Various neck code schemes were used throughout the Leo Fender and CBS eras. In 1972 Fender adopted a new type of neck stamp which had 8-digits. This was stamped in green or red ink. An example of this is "02033923" found on a Jazz Bass. From 1972 through about March 1973, this new system was used concurrently with the previous "XX MMM-YY W" format. Again, a neck was stamped with either the new or the old date stamp, but not both.
April 1973 to 1980: After March 1973, Fender dropped the old style date stamp and continued to use the new style, 8-digit code.

Pot codes are much easier to figure out. You can nail them down to the very week they were made by using a perpetual calendar you can look up online for whatever year you are dealing with and then count up the weeks.

TO DECODE A POT CODE: The first 3 numbers are makers ID code, next two numbers are year, last two are week.

A code of “1378812” Decodes 137 = CTS ID, 88 = 1988, 12 = 12th week of that year

“304-6237” Decodes 304 = Stackpole ID, 62 =1962, 37 = 37th week of that year
NOTE: In 66 CBS placed a massive pot order. These pots all date to 66 & were used from 66 until 70! So a 1970 neck date could have a 1966 pot date.


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