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Post subject: 1976-78 Fender Precision bass Fake or real Need Help!!!!
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:28 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:25 pm
Posts: 432
I have a Fender P bass Im having a hard time telling whats original on it. Like the pickguard and the pots. The pots say ER885 250K 0814 CTS and the input jack is a swicthcraft. I cant find anything on the pickguard at all But it looks like their was a factory sticker on the front of pickguard at one time. Did they have stickers on the pickguards back then? It is a white pickguard with sheild tape from the pots to the pickups. The neck says 0103-3884 on the end of the neck and the body I found a sticker under the pickup. Does this seem right? Thanks for any help and Im glad to find this site Thanks


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Post subject: Re: 1976-78 Fender Precision bass Fake or real Need Help!!!!
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:24 pm
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Rock Star
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Location: Albemarle, NC
Double check that pot code please. CTS pot date codes should start "137." Maybe wiring, solder or a capacitor is hiding the code starting 137. The pot codes do not usually contain any alphabetical characters or the impedance.

It should have a tan colored ceramic disc capacitor living on the back of the tone pot and it probably should have "Z5V," ".05 M" and "100V" face up on three separate lines of the dime sized disc capacitor.

Your neck code 01033884 appears genuine and decodes thusly:
01= Precision Bass
03=Rosewood neck with skunk stripe on back of neck
38 = 38th week
8 = 1978
4 = Thursday
So your neck was stamped Thursday September 14, 1978.

While you have the neck off you should see an assortment of inspection stamps and pen marks on both the neck paddle and in the neck pocket of the body. There should be an inspection stamp on the neck paddle with the last name of the inspector which changed colors but was usually red or green in 1978 but I've also seen blue.

I honestly can't remember Fender using stickers on pickguards until after they started the full protective peel off sheeting, however I've forgotten lots of stuff and it could have happened. It would be out of character for either Leo Fender or CBS to spend money on stickers that someone would just peel off and throw away. Leo was especially frugal but both management eras were very cost conscious and stickers on guards weren't commonly used as a marketing tool until the past 15 or so years. Seems to me that I recall another brand started sticker marketing to give their instruments "curb appeal" by touting a warranty. It was probably an owner applied sticker so just be thankful it wasn't on the painted finish.

The back of the pickguard should have a self adhesive aluminum sheet which was diecut to fit the contours of the guard from the pickups to the tip near the jack for shielding. All the wiring should be white or black.

It should have a Switchcraft jack. That doesn't prove anything though as Switchcraft was about the only jack around in the USA at that time.


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Post subject: Re: 1976-78 Fender Precision bass Fake or real Need Help!!!!
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:40 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:25 pm
Posts: 432
Thank you for the helpful info. Did they only come with black pickguards in the 70's?


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Post subject: Re: 1976-78 Fender Precision bass Fake or real Need Help!!!!
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:27 pm
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Rock Star
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Location: Albemarle, NC
You got to pick the color of the instrument you ordered and depending on the color of the paint Fender had a set pickguard color scheme for that model year. You couldn't pick the pickguard color as a regular Joe or Jane. Maybe people like Dick Dale or Carol Kaye could.

The pickguard scheme varied sometimes from model year to model year and sometimes it stayed the same for years at a time. Blonde was getting white one ply some years, black one ply in others. Black paint some years got white/black/white 3 ply guards, other years black paint got you a black/white/black. They mixed it up but were consistent within the model year.

One constant in the 70's was that Sunburst almost always got a brown tortoise shell guard with those nice yellow chunks of confetti tossed into the mix which is one of my all-time favorite guards. While the '62 Reissue guards come as close as anything I've seen to replicate them, they got the yellow chunks way too small. Another constant was that Candy Apple Red almost always got white/black/white guards. Olympic White would have white/black/white some years but other model years reversed to black/white/black. Mostly the white/black/white was in the 60's on Olympic White I think. White guards on Olympic White is a fantastic combo and probably my second favorite combo to the Sunburst with the 70's tortoise. Candy Apple Red with a white guard would be third.

When you ordered a Fender instrument you were asked what color. It never crossed anyone's mind to ask for a different pickguard than the current model year standard issue the entire time I worked part time at a Fender dealer called Ralph's Radio Music in 1970/71/72.

Cataloging the various color/pickguard schemes over the entire Leo/CBS years would make someone a very good research project. Maybe would take years to sort it all out definitively.


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