Bob's Vintage Guitars

The Fender Jaguar

Written by vintage on March 2, 2009 – 4:50 am -

The Fender Jaguar was first released in 1962. It was based very much on the Jazzmaster, another Fender guitar first made in the late 50s. The majority of vintage Jaguars are sunburst. Other "custom colors" are more rare.

Apparently, a 5% premium was charged for these paint jobs (including candy apple red and olympic white, which are perhaps the most common colors after sunburst).

Taking the extra charge for custom colors into account, it's little wonder that most 60's Jaguars we see are sunburst, because they were obviously the cheapest to buy, and at this time, the Jaguar was the most expensive Fender guitar available.
Sunburst was available with non-matching headstock only. Olympic white was available with or without matching headstock. Jaguars finished in transparent blonde always have ash bodies, and come without matching headstock only.

All the other custom colors seem to come with matching headstock only (though there may be exceptions). Black Jaguars have just the "Fender" part of the decal on the headstock. The "Jaguar", "DES/PAT" and "OFFSET Contour Body" decal parts were probably left off, because they would have been masked out.
There are also Left handed Jaguars from the 60's. But they are quite rare. There was never a left handed tremolo for them though. So the bar insert is effectively on the opposite side.
The body was made of alder (with blonde finishes being an exception). The neck was made of maple with a rosewood fretboard and clay dot markers. There seem to be early 1962 fretboards that were made as slab . But after mid-late '62, all seem to be veneer. The neck and body are finished in nitrocellulose lacquer.

The neck is stamped at the heel. For example, "1 OCT 62 B". I'm not entirely sure what the "1" means. But it's probably nothing to do with date, as every early Jaguar appears to have a 1 in that position. Perhaps this was simply the number that would indicate that it was a Jaguar neck. The "OCT" means October. "62"=1962. And "B" is the nut width, in the Jaguars case, B = 1 5/8". An "A" would mean 1.5", though they are quite rare. See the gallery for a '65 surf green A width Jaguar.
In the body route for the tremolo, there is a date written. With some other unreadable scribbling just above it. There are no markings in the neck pocket.
The headstock is what you could call the first "CBS style" larger headstock (though somewhat smaller). It seems as the Fender guitars went along (Telecaster, Stratocaster, Jazzmaster, Jaguar) the headstocks got bigger.

The decal was placed above the lacquer and has the gold transition "Fender" logo on. the gold part of the logo has a raised, speckled appearance. Beneath it in black reads "DES 186,826 PAT 2,960,900 2,972,923 & PAT. PEND". There is a little "OFFSET Contour Body" decal on the headstock as well.
Like all Fender guitars, the Jaguar neck is fixed in place by screws that are countersunk into a neckplate. The neck plate has a serial number on it. This number appears to be in accordance with how many Fender guitars were run off the production line. For example, serial number "89,685" means that this Jaguar was the 89,685th guitar made by Fender.

Though it may have been a little more random than that. Meaning that the neckplate wouldn't have been fetched and put on any given fender guitar in any particular order. Later on when the production numbers of Fender guitars got to the one hundred thousand mark, the "1" in "100,000" was apparently stamped as an "L" by mistake, but the plates were used anyway.
The machine heads were the single line Kluson Deluxe Safe-T-Posts plated with nickel, that were on all Fender guitars at the time. They are 6 in line. With oval buttons and a little grease nipple cannily located at the "O" in "KLUSON" on the back of the gear housing. Jaguar hardware was also available with gold plate, instead of nickel and chrome. Usually on blonde or olympic white.
The tremolo system on the Jaguar is quite unique. On the plate there is a patent number reading "PAT. # 2,972,923". The strings go from the lever tail piece over a rocking bridge that sits on 2 pins. The 6 saddles can differ. Some have 3 different sizes of groove thread on them (smallest for E and B, medium for G and D, and largest for A and E). Others 60's Jaguar bridges have all the same size groove thread. The bridge has dome shaped welds over the rivets. There is also a cover for the bridge assey.
Underneath the bridge is a spring loaded mute which can be flipped into position. It has a line of foam on it that cushions the strings when in position. After many years this foam usually perishes.
The controls and scratch plate area is made up of 3 metal control plates and a celluloid plastic pickguard. Brown tortoiseshell pickguard was usually used on sunburst, olympic white and blonde Jaguars.

White pickguard was used on most other custom colors. The pickups are much like any other Fender single coil pickups that were around at the time. But the covers and bobbins were different. The pickups height screws tap directly into the body. The pickup sits on some squeezey foam that is underneath it in the route, and is forced down by the screws on either side. The covers incorporate a metal shielding claw. These claws have 6 'teeth'. The 2 shortest sit at one side of the claw.

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