macieq Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Hello I bought this Fender jazz bass from 1969 but I'm not sure if the pickups and pots are original. Could anybody help me with this, please? Here are the photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 (edited) [quote name='macieq' timestamp='1393158769' post='2376752'] Hello I bought this Fender jazz bass from 1969 but I'm not sure if the pickups and pots are original. Could anybody help me with this, please? Here are the photos. [/quote] Here's my opinion mate. First thought is the pickups could be 1989. The stamps mostly ended with the year of manufacture. The wires make me question the age. The pickups for a 1968 should mostly have burgundy colour windings around the pickup, cloth wire connectors (black & white or orange & green) and[u] rounded[/u] pole pieces where the magnet lies under the strings, these ceased in the 70's. There seems to be some original orange wire in there joining your pots and jack so they could be original. The pots may or may not be later, but would need the codes to check that out. The capacitor looks wrong as it should be a pancake style. Hope this helps. Edited February 23, 2014 by Chiliwailer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macieq Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Thanks for your help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chiliwailer Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 (edited) Thinking about it..... 1989 pickups were black bottomed. The grey colour and stamp appear very 60's/70's Fender so it could just be that some wires and pots were changed? I'm not an expert but I've seen many of these basses 'under the hood' so I'm just relying from memory (maybe not the best guy to give advice?!). Fender codes often went through changes and perhaps someone simply changed some wires when changing pots? Or perhaps the wires and capacitor are old stock for amplifiers they were using up, this is how the green and orange wires came about. Anything is possible from that the late 60's as CBS started to penny pinch [size=4] [/size] Edited February 24, 2014 by Chiliwailer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macieq Posted February 24, 2014 Author Share Posted February 24, 2014 Everything's OK (all original) with this Jazzbass. "....the pickup codes mean 38th week of 1969, and it appears that you have the 1966 pots as do most other basses from '66 through '69. My '66 has the blue molded cap, which was found in all the blonde and blackface Fender amps of the same time period, and the solder joints appear to be undisturbed. ...those are 38th week of '69 pickups. And yes the '66 dated pots are correct as they had the huge stock of 1376642 supply that lasted until 1970. And the blue Ajax cap is correct too....." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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