'73 JS w/natural neck?

http://www.gbase.com/Stores/Gear/GearDe ... em=1745205

Thoughts? I've never seen a JS with a natural neck like that. PU toggle looks changed although slipping plastic over the original toggle could do that. That style of headstock inlay seems to have been more common on JS I than II but is feasible. All the long scale JS's I can recall had "LS" on the truss rod cover. Don't see that in the pictures. Tuners don't look stock and it doesn't look like the serial number was impressed on the back of the headstock.

Makes me wonder if someone built a new neck, perhaps extending the scale length? Does that make sense or is it much more reasonable that they took the neck off and stripped the finish?

At $495 it sounds like a project bass or a candidate for Dark Stars. (Don't you love putting $400 worth of PU on a $500 bass?) 8)

Maybe they replaced the original neck with a B-301 neck. Though off the top of my head I don't know what the headstock logo is on a B-301

The Guilds of Grot said:

Maybe they replaced the original neck with a B-301 neck. Though off the top of my head I don't know what the headstock logo is on a B-301

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G of G,

That would be a good guess, but I am curious about the heel; that area still has the "original" or matched-to-body tint.
Possibly taped off at the factory or afterwards?

Hello all! First post here from a lurker and fellow Guildian (...Guilder??). Actually, a couple of you already know me from that other site...

They did make some long scale versions of the JS starting around 1972. These supposedly had maple necks, instead of the 3-piece mahog that was employed on the short scales. That one on Gbase looks pretty close to the long scales depicted in this photo:



Looking at the back of that one on Gbase, I'm wondering if someone just stripped the neck and refinished it au naturel (maybe they didn't like the feel of the finish, or there were dings/defects, etc...). Heavy-handed sanding may have taken off the S/N. This is just my speculation, though. Wish I could find a posterior shot of another JS II LS model to compare it with...

If it is legit, $495 might not be a bad deal at all - especially if there is some room for negotiation in there.

fronobulax said:

(Don't you love putting $400 worth of PU on a $500 bass?) 8)

Click to expand...

Ah, yes - been there! This almost could have been a stock M-85 II, by the time I got done with it

Nice to see you here chromium!!!

welcome from germany. chromium.

I looked at the back of my JS bass and the neck heel is totally different! The guitar body stops at the top line of the body and there's a notch down to the neck.

It's hard to describe, if I remember I'll take a picture of it tonight.

Wow was I confused! I had the JS bass neck all wrong. I was looking at a few things and I guess I got mixed up. It's the later guitars that have the step down to the neck from the body.

Anyway, here's and bad out of focus shot of the neck joint of my JS bass;



As you can see there is a definite line where the body meets the bass.

Here's a enlarged shot of the bass under discusion;



It looks to me that the body is running all the way up the neck and it is not masked and painted.

Further analysis anyone?

Your oak-leaf bass is beautiful! (saw it in your photos link). Our JS-IIs both have the 3-piece mahogany necks, which I think were used on all the short scale JS models. My '72 is similar to yours, in terms of the structure:


That bass up on Gbase looks like one of the 34" scale JS-IIs (i think they called it a "JS-II LS") that Guild made from '72 up through the end of the JS lineup ('77?). You can usually spot these since they only have 20 frets, and the bridge sits right up against the bottom edge of the body. They don't show up on the market very often, though, and I'm assuming that they are rare for the same reasons that the long-scale Gibson EB-0/3Ls are rare (everyone was buying Fenders! ). It was my understanding that these long scale JS-I and II models employed maple necks, as opposed to the 3-piece mahogany necks used on the short-scale JSs. I've never actually seen one in person, though, and I've only seen a few for sale - usually in black, or with poor pics that did not reveal much detail about the construction. I don't even know of anyone (on forums, etc..) that owns one, that I can recall. If anyone does - please post some pictures!!

I guess what I am wondering is whether or not the neck join may have been done differently on the long-scale maple-neck JSs. I couldn't tell from that pic where the seam(s) are either, and it's hard to rule it out as a fake when I don't even know for sure how a real one is put together. I was wondering if they set the maple neck in, and used a mahogany heel - or if the heel was possibly just an extruded part of the body... :?: I'm always fascinated by all these bits of minutiae, so I'd be curious if anyone has more info on these odd beasts. I think this is one of the things that attracts me to the old Guilds and Gibsons - there is always something new, strange, and interesting popping up!

Oh - and thanks for the welcomes!

Cheers