Originally, the Fender Jaguar Guitar was introduced in 1962. The design was based off the Jazzmaster. The way that it differed had to do with the offset waist and floating tremolo system. In addition, it was given a shorter 24 inch scale in comparison to the jazzmaster as well.
Overall, only small changes were made in comparison to the old Jazzmaster. Mostly, this had to do with small changes to the body, as well as the scale length. The Jaguar came fitted with a 22 fret neck and became the first to have this feature among the Fender guitars.
In addition, some changes were made for visual appearance. Among these changes were the addition of metal control plates. Although the changes made revolved around appearance it related to the idea of the change on how the guitar was assembled as well.
No longer were the components soldered outside of the body and to installed to the rear of the pickguard, but rather wired into each section. Additionally, the wire only had the drilled holes to pass through. Another difference featured with the Jaguar had to do with the flip mute mechanism, which had to do with other manufactures who offered this at this time.
At the time they were made, it was in the first month of the year of 1962. Many think that they were made on a promotional basis. It was not until March of 1962 that they were made in larger quantities. Many of the guitars of this kind were made in custom colors, featuring matching headstocks.
In April of that year, it was the first time they were stamped with a code that identified the model, month, and year, in addition to the nut width on them. At the start of July in the same year, the veneer rosewood, replaced the slab type. Additionally, the pontentiometers started being consistently stamped with part numbers.
By January of 1965, clay dots were no longer used. These were completely replaced with pearloid dots. Another change that occurred early in the same year had to do with the material used with the pickguard, which was changed over from a nitrate material to a vinyl material. When this happened, this caused the tortoise pickguards to change from blotchy brown and yellow to a purplish red color.
Many other changes occurred along as well. However, the Fender Jaguar Guitar was originally made to become one of the top line guitars, but never made it to that level of popularity as the Stratocaster and Telecaster did. Many additional upgrades were made to the guitar until finally laying it to rest in 1975.
No comments:
Post a Comment