'63 "Refin" JM price check

[Embenny]

Found someone locally who's trying to sell a '63 JM that has seen better days. Original finish completely gone, some hideous attempt at DIY sunburst done in its place, which the current seller has tried to strip and seemingly gave up halfway through. The decal is also gone and replaced with what looks like a DIY sharpie at recreating the original logo.




It was a "make me an offer" type ad, no listed price. I contacted the guy with a few questions and an initial offer (admittedly a low one, but he didn't actually say whether the guitar was in fully working condition, and the photos were just of a few disembodied parts - none of the whole thing assembled), and he replied with a reverb link (of course) suggesting that a "refin '63 JM" such as his is worth at least $3k US.

I was kinda gobsmacked. I know everyone thinks they're sitting on pure gold, but has the marketplace gone so JM-crazy that this is a actually $3k guitar? I haven't gone to check out all of the guts in person to see if they're all original as he claims, since my initial dealings with him have left me with the impression that I would not be walking away having made a deal.

[PJazzmaster]

everyone thinks they're sitting on pure gold

+1

has the marketplace gone so JM-crazy that this is a actually $3k guitar?

No, not even 1k in my opinion (depending on the overall condition of the neck. I'd need to see more pics)

[FrankRay]

The value is always going to be more than the value of the individual parts; pre CBS body, maybe £700, neck maybe £1000, pickups £300 or so, tuners, pickguard etc. Bottom line is it's worth what anyone buying it could get parting it out. Definitely more than £1000. Less than £3000. Not much less, though, depending. No date stamp for instance would definitely lower the price, etc etc.

[spacecadet]

The value is always going to be more than the value of the individual parts;

I don't think so - otherwise people wouldn't bother parting out guitars. It's the same thing with cars or anything else. The individual parts are usually worth more, because people usually only need to buy one part, so they're willing to pay 1/4 the price of the whole thing to get 1/8 the parts. They're still saving 3/4 the price of a whole new thing (whatever it is).

The reason most people *don't* part out old guitars is that they don't want to bother. It's a lot more work trying to sell 10 different components than it is to sell one guitar. And that's exactly the argument I'd use with this guy. This thing is a collection of parts; you could sell them and maybe get $3,000, but there are a lot better Jazzmasters out there for $3k than what this thing looks like. But you're saving him the trouble of parting it out. I mean that nut is shot too. No decal, no finish; this thing's going to need a lot of work. You're doing him a favor taking this thing off his hands. This guitar isn't "refinished" and shouldn't be compared to a guitar that is. "Refinished" means it has a finish on it. This guitar has parts of two or three finishes in various stages of being sanded off. He's obviously out of his depth.

Assuming all the parts are *there* and can at least be salvaged, I personally would not pay more than $2,000 for this, and that would not be my opening offer. If the guy laughs that off, good luck to him. Maybe some sucker will buy it for what he wants, maybe not.

[bencrit]

I think the price for this guitar is really going to depend upon a lot of factors, including what others have said above. If you have no neck stamp to validate the year, that will be a little bit of a hit. If the pickguard and electronics are intact, that will be a big plus. I have seen loaded pick guards from this era would probably go between 500-$750 depending upon the condition. Maybe a little more if you are willing to wait.

I think a good way to gauge this is to just add up the value of all the parts. If they are single line klusons, that is about $300 if you have screws and bushings. The tremolo unit maybe worth about 150-$200. I'd only say about $350 for the body in that condition, and maybe around 800 for the neck. It does have Brazilian Rosewood, so if you wanted to turn around and sell it you'd only have to advertise it as a Brazilian and that will find bidders. Clean examples of necks have gone for $1500 or more. I cut that in half for one in this shape. I think that would be the best way to value this guitar: add up the sum of the parts.

If I were you, and I really wanted to buy this guitar, I would not want to pay more than $2000 for it. Gruhn guitars recently sold a professionally refinished 1962 jazzmaster with a really clean neck that was a slab board for 3200. I think that gives you more reasonable gauge for the price. This guitar does not have a pro-refinish in the neck is not at all.

I think if you sold it as an eBay auction, you probably get about 2200-2500 for it. But that's just my best guess.

My advice would be to simply save your money and put it towards a cleaner jazzmaster that will hold it's value and likely increase in the future.

[PJazzmaster]

btw: when I said 1k, I assumed it's only the parts as shown on the pics
does it come with all the parts or not?

[Embenny]

btw: when I said 1k, I assumed it's only the parts as shown on the pics
does it come with all the parts or not?

It is apparently all of the parts, reassembled into a guitar, though there are no photos of it as such and no proof as of yet that its function (e.g. Truss rod turntable, electronics properly functioning). No photo involving a pickguard at all, either.

Like I said, I'm backing away from this one because the guy's response to my initial offer was, "these go for $3k US and mine is cooler looking than this refin (linked) on reverb."

Um. Sure.

Definitely not the guitar for me, and definitely not a seller I want to deal with. He claims this was a one-owner guitar before it came to him, though I'm not sure how many original owners would be inclined to sand off a logo and re-write it in sharpie, or to do...whatever this is...to a body.

If I found this thing at an estate sale or garage sale, I'd be inclined to give it the TLC it requires. This guy thinks he's got the equivalent of that Gruhn refin JM that was mentioned earlier in this post.

I'm happy to hear everyone's input on this though, because I'm learning a lot. Vintage offsets don't pop up often locally (in in Canada), so I took a harder look at it than I would have online. Unfortunately, it seems the owner went to Reverb listings and decided this guitar is worth the asking price of actual good-condition JMs (and we all know the difference between Reverb asking prices and the prices you can actually find out in the wild).

[Despot]

For reference, I paid 1,800 euro for a '66 B&B Jazzmaster that had suffered a body and neck refin (including replaced decal with the wrong spaghetti logo). And that was an otherwise fully functional and fantastic Jazzmaster.

Now I know '62 is going to cost more than '66, but that thing isn't worth 1,800 euro. I'd struggle to justify 1,500 euro. I'm guessing there's no neck stamp? Certainly there's nothing on the body left to date it other than structural things that we geek about on here (i.e. no remains of the original colour in the neck pocket - sign of paint stick etc).

But this is becoming more common. There was a guy here in Dublin looking for 3.5k for a '62 JM that had been stripped and refinished in natural - including the headstock (which had no logo). I paid 3,800 for a '62 that was in all original condition. When I pointed that out to him to try to argue a bit on the price he did the whole "look at reverb" thing and suggested that he could sell it for 4k or more. As far as I know he's still trying to shift it 2 years later...

[Embenny]

For reference, I paid 1,800 euro for a '66 B&B Jazzmaster that had suffered a body and neck refin (including replaced decal with the wrong spaghetti logo). And that was an otherwise fully functional and fantastic Jazzmaster.

Now I know '62 is going to cost more than '66, but that thing isn't worth 1,800 euro. I'd struggle to justify 1,500 euro. I'm guessing there's no neck stamp? Certainly there's nothing on the body left to date it other than structural things that we geek about on here (i.e. no remains of the original colour in the neck pocket - sign of paint stick etc).

But this is becoming more common. There was a guy here in Dublin looking for 3.5k for a '62 JM that had been stripped and refinished in natural - including the headstock (which had no logo). I paid 3,800 for a '62 that was in all original condition. When I pointed that out to him to try to argue a bit on the price he did the whole "look at reverb" thing and suggested that he could sell it for 4k or more. As far as I know he's still trying to shift it 2 years later...

The one thing this guitar does have is a heel stamp on the neck, but the rest of your story sounds familiar. People now point to asking prices (not sold prices) of nicer examples on Reverb all the time as justification for their asking price.

Ive written about this before, but my biggest pet peeve is asking more for a refin custom colour than for an original, beat up sunburst. People see that an original LPB goes for double a sunburst price, so they take a guitar like the one in this thread, slap LPB on it, and put it online for more than an original 'burst "because a refin only loses 30% value". But that's 30% of the original value - I have seen these guitars seemingly sell (if you believe the ads coming down truly means a sale), perhaps to people who don't understand guitar values.

I look forward to following this guitar if the seller does list it on Reverb as he threatened to.

[Despot]

Yeah ... the refin price thing is utter bullshit.

For me a refin of a guitar is more like a 50% reduction in price, unless it's been professionally done and looks great.

Some people don't understand it though. That Jazzmaster that I mentioned above (the '66) was originally listed as a '69 Jazzmaster and as being 'all original'. The seller put up photos that were terrible, but they were good enough to show that it had a spaghetti logo on a large headstock, schaller tuners and the silver burst finish that was for sure not original. His original price was based on '69 JMs and around 2,500 euro.

I contacted the guy politely and pointed out the issues with the logo, tuners and finish. I also advised him to pop the neck to see the neck code ... which of course dated it as a '66 Jazzmaster. He would have been justified in keeping his price at 2,500 as, logo notwithstanding, everything else about it looked fantastic. And 2,500 at the time was the same price (or near enough) to a '65AV ... so a vintage Jazzmaster for around the same price of a reissue would have been a no-brainer.

However, the seller was a gent - he dropped his price based on the issues identified. I was the only one who seemed interested (everyone else was commenting 'fake' based on the spaghetti logo - I knew from the tort colour that it was legit) and we made a deal. When i collected the guitar he gave it to me in a huge flight case. As I was leaving he said "oh ... I've got the original case for that as well if you want it?" - he then produces a really clean black Fender logo offset case (which my L series Jaguar now lives in). I tried to get him to keep it (I was tapped out for cash buying the JM so I couldn't buy it from him) and sell it on ebay to make a few hundred quid from it - the guy wouldn't hear of it and insisted that I took it. For every seller who is an asshat to deal with, looking for far too much money for their guitar, there's someone who is an absolute gem - and this guy was that.

[Embenny]

For reference, I just wanted to say that the guitar has evidently sold at $2500 CAD ($1900 USD). I was keeping an eye on it, but wasn't ready to jump on it. It apparently needed a refret, among other things - never checked it out in person but did get a fair bit of info on it.

[spacecadet]

For reference, I just wanted to say that the guitar has evidently sold at $2500 CAD ($1900 USD).

Based on the info presented here, that seems about right. I guess the seller came to his senses and whoever bought it knew what he was doing.