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Post subject: Fender Heartfield Series DR 6
Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:18 pm
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Anyone know anything about this bass? I am having trouble finding anything out about it, mainly interested in what its worth. Took it to Guitar Center and they couldn't tell me all they said was that it was a "Rare" guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Heartfield Series DR 6
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 6:34 pm
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Waiting on pics myself. To post pics upload your pics to online free picture hosting like photobucket or another one that allows direct linking. Then click the IMG button on the toolbar over the post text and paste the DIRECT link to the photo within the IMG tags. Then click preview to make sure photos are displaying correctly. Then click submit.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Heartfield Series DR 6
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:30 pm
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The DR's were the nicest Heartfield basses. The Heartfield project was conceived as a way for Fender to compete against the basses coming out of Asia from Ibanez, Yamaha, Aria and others while keeping their favored Japanese manufacturer, Fujigen, from being contracted by the competition. The goal of the Heartfield project was to develop cutting edge basses and guitars to blow away anything else on the market. As far as the DR bass series goes that is exactly what they did. Some of the innovations of the Heartfield DR series stand as unique accomplishments even today over 20 years later. Some of the best people in guitar/bass design worked on the Heartfield team comprised of top people from Fender including George Blanda plus Fujigen's wiz kids and outsiders brought in from other projects including Ibanez. They used EMG pickups primarily on the DR-6's. They were taking custom orders and did produce some custom neck through fretless ones. Custom ones were pricier but those few fretless ones were said to only be available to Fender endorsing artists like John McVie of Fleetwood Mac.

Yes the one you have would be rare. There days any Heartfield bass is seldom seen, but the 6 stringers are even fewer and farther between. There were two types of DR-6's, the DR-6 (bolt on neck) and the DR-C6 (neck through.) The neck through ones were made in Fujigen Gakki's Hirooka factory, the bolt on versions were made in the Fujigen's Matsumoto plant. Both plants are in the Fujigen Gakki complex in Nagano, Japan.

The DR series were the nicer of the two Heartfield bass series and is the one with the super sweet low-impedance XLR jack which I'd LOVE to see on today's USA active Fenders.

You hardly ever see a DR-6 or DR-C6 for sale, but the past 5 years or so I see more of the neck through versions though of the 6 strings for sale for some reason. Whether the bolt on versions are actually rarer or not I do not know. These were fairly pricey in their day with a DR-6C listing retail for almost $2,100 US. No kidding, $2,099. That was a lot of money between 1988 and 1992 when they were sold. Some are badged HEARTFIELD. Some are branded HEARTFIELD BY FENDER and some just say FENDER. This partially depends on the distribution channel used and when they were made.

While cutting edge basses even by today's standards (not to mention that some of them are quite scarce) they have not appreciated in value much which is somewhat perplexing to me. A super nice DR-6C seller would be lucky to get 50% of what it cost new. I've seen DR-4 bolt on versions go for about $400 this year. I can easier understand the P-Bass Lyte's lagging resale prices because there are just so dang many of them, but Heartfield basses are downright scarce.

No matter the price, these are excellent instruments designed by the best team Fender could assemble and turned out by the two top quality shops in Japan. When the Heartfield project closed in 1992, the Heartfield bass design lived on in the Fender Prophecy series which basically were mass produced versions of the Heartfield PR series. Then when the Prophecy was discontinued Squier started making the Squier MB-4 based on the Fender Prophecy which is still on sale by Squier and is the last use of the Heartfield PR's basic body and headstock shape. As you do not judge a Corona Fender by a Squire Affinity, please do not judge a Heartfield DR by a Squier MB either. They are completely different things.

The Heartfield instruments never were exactly brisk sellers. The Heartfield project shutdown was caused primarily by the poor US Dollar versus Japanese Yen exchange rate which went bonkers just as the Heartfield project was coming to fruition making the Heartfield instruments far more expensive to buy in the USA than anticipated when the project was conceived. The Yen kept rising in value while the declining US Dollar made Heartfield's state of the art basses more expensive in the USA than Fender USA models! Often cited as a contributing reason for discontinuation of the Heartfield project is that buyers in the USA & elsewhere didn't want to buy anything from Fender except minor tweaks to the basic Precision and Jazz designs. It seems that is the way Fender interpreted it anyway and perhaps took it a little too much to heart. Between the end of the Heartfield project until the Fender Jaguar Bass came along Reissues, Standards, Deluxes and Artist versions of traditional P's and J's were the main diet served up by Fender.

There's gobs of info about the DR-6 here: http://www.heartfield-central.com/html/dr%28c%29.htm


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Post subject: Re: Fender Heartfield Series DR 6
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 6:26 am
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brotherdave wrote:
No matter the price, these are excellent instruments designed by the best team Fender could assemble and turned out by the two top quality shops in Japan. When the Heartfield project closed in 1992, the Heartfield bass design lived on in the Fender Prophecy series which basically were mass produced versions of the Heartfield PR series. Then when the Prophecy was discontinued Squier started making the Squier MB-4 based on the Fender Prophecy which is still on sale by Squier and is the last use of the Heartfield PR's basic body and headstock shape. As you do not judge a Corona Fender by a Squire Affinity, please do not judge a Heartfield DR by a Squier MB either. They are completely different things.


The Prophecy and MB models are regarded as the precursors to the shortlived Dimension series basses which were available with 4 and 5 strings.
However, the 6-string Dimension Bass VI never came into fruition.

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