❌SOLD❌ Fender P Bass Rosewood Board Sunburst 1963

Here we have a beautiful Fender P Bass, Rosewood fingerboard model dating to 1963 or late 1962, showing a lot of honest play wear from years of use in Toronto jazz clubs.

Leo Fender started shipping the ground-breaking Precision Bass in October of 1951. In 1954, it gained the new ‘Stratocaster’ style body contours. In 1957 the new two-coil hum-cancelling pickup and larger headstock and this is the form that has continued to present time. In mid 1959 Fender, seeking more market share in the Jazz crowd, added a Rosewood fingerboard to the Precision bass to match the 1958 Jazzmaster.  That fingerboard was a ‘Slab’ style, a flat-bottom section of Rosewood glued to the flat top of a Maple neck blank. This construction method was used until mid 1962, when Fender finalized production changes allowing use of a Rosewood veneer on a rounded Maple neck. Slab boards are now only found on reissue models.

Over the years, the Fender P Bass has become the most recorded bass,  used by countless artists on stages and sessions in almost every genre.   It has proven itself highly versatile, durable and reliable, and is the reference for countless copies.

This Fender P Bass features a veneer Rosewood fingerboard, which dates it to later 1962 or early 1963. The pencilled date has worn off the end of the fingerboard over the years. The volume and tone pots, two of the highest wear items, have been replaced and so their codes don’t reference the date. The headstock features the ‘Spaghetti’ Fender logo decal which is in good condition, and that was used until late 1964. The faux-tortoise pickguard is original, as are the pickups and tuners.

The nitrocellulose lacquer finish is original and illustrates that this Fender P Bass was used as intended for many years. It’s almost entirely worn off the back of the neck, and there is heavy finish wear on the body back and anywhere it came into contact with the player. This is the kind of ‘relic’ wear that many reproductions try to emulate. The Rosewood fingerboard has been refretted at least once over the years and as a result of the ‘planing’ involved in that work is thin at the body end. The 19th fret clay dot position marker is worn through. At the time of construction, Fender like most other American builders sourced Rosewood from South America, particularly from Brazil.

This bass  plays well and has a great feel and sounds exactly like an early 60’s model.  It is currently strung with round wounds.    

Likely due to import duty reasons, it was common practice at the time for distributors to ship instruments into Canada without cases. Cases were then sourced locally by the distributor and sold with the instrument to dealers. That was the situation here, and the case is from the period, likely original to the first retail purchase.  The case has the initials of the original owner, a prominent and long-serving Toronto bassist.