Brand: Fender
Instrument Categories: Bass, Guitars, Solidbody
This Fender Precision Bass illustrates an interesting aspect of Fender production with a Sunburst over Olympic White finish. It is in very good playing condition, with light fret and fingerboard wear suggesting flat-wound strings. Visually, this is a real-life ‘relic’.
During 1969, the Fender Precision Bass design paired an Alder body with a Rosewood-fingerboard Maple neck. The truss rod was mounted before the fingerboard went on, so there is no Walnut ‘Skunk Stripe’ on the back of the neck. The fingerboard is Indian Rosewood; most builders had started to discontinue use of Brazilian Rosewood for production models starting in 1966.
During 1969, Precision Bass hardware was largely unchanged from the 1957 rework that brought the P-Bass more in line with the Stratocaster. The primary visual difference is the branding on the tuners.
The finish on this bass is very interesting, and has a distinctive visual aspect given the effects of real-world use. The body started with an Olympic White polyester finish, but at some point very early on, a nitrocellulose lacquer sunburst in exactly correct colours was applied over top. It’s known that as orders required, Fender or their distributors would take an existing body and refinish it before its initial retail sale. It is also known that while Fender shifted to Polyester finishes in the mid-late 1960’s, Nitrocellulose lacquer was still used in some circumstances. There are a number of other Fender Precision bass examples from 1969 with this precise finish combination and wear characteristics.
Sold with its original hard shell case.
- Model: Precision Bass
- Year: 1969
- Finish Sunburst over Olympic White
- Class: Vintage
- Serial Number: 226154, built during 1969 at Fullerton CA
- Country of Origin: USA
- Condition: Good
- Date Posted: 14/04/2024
- Consignment Item
- Including original Hard case
- Instrument Weight: 8.65lbs 3.93kg
- Scale Length: 34in 863.6mm
- Nut Width: 1.641in 42mm
