Original sparkle finish offsets?

[Naturality]

here's That Feeder One I mentioned
Tortoise shell so probably a refin

[eggwheat]

Hmm thought the rule was if it's custom colour and it has a tortoishell scratch then it probably aint original?

That is most certainly not the case, eggwheat - there were plenty of factory-original offsets made with a.o. Blonde, Olympic White, Burgundy Mist Metallic, Candy Apple Red etc. finishes with tortoiseshell pickguards.

Im not sure I agree..Blonde and olympic white were almost always tortoiseshell anyway. Burgundy mist and candy apple were nearly always white scratchplate..Certainly if I took a Burgundy Mist Jazzmaster with tortoieshell into Music ground or denmark street in the UK eyebrows would certainly be a raised..

[zhivago]

the general idea is that Black, Blonde, Olympic White and Sunburst all had tortoise shell guards as standard

it is said that 99.9% of the remaining custom colours had white guards....of course, there have been some guitars known to be original custom colours with tortoise shell guards on them...they are believed to be custom orders....I' m not sure if there's truth to that, but it's not too much of a wild idea....

thing is, the overwhelming majority of custom colours with tortoiseshell guards out there are usually refinned sunbursts though...

my 2p.

[Mad-Mike]

Aw man, this thread reminds me of a little more than a year ago when I bought my Jaguar....I came downtown to test out a few amps, new Jaguar in tow, and I come into one of the stores and find a practically MINT 1963-64ish Fender Jaguar in Champagne Silver Sparkle, with Mute, AND Bridge cover, and the original hang tags, they were asking about $4000 for it at the time.  THis thing was MINT, not a scratch on it.  I think it's the only time I turned down getting to play a Jaguar before....yes, I was offered to try it out, and I was all against it because that guitar was just so mint, I was afraid I might scratch the paint or dent it.  It was a gorgeous Jag though.  At least  now, I know that thing was definatley legit, and not a refinish, one of the Jazzmasters on the previous page has the exact same finish, Silver Sparkle.

[Fall reverb]

Im not sure I agree..Blonde and olympic white were almost always tortoiseshell anyway. Burgundy mist and candy apple were nearly always white scratchplate..

That is exactly the reason why I mentioned that there were a.o. plenty of blonde & Olympic White (which are both custom colours) offsets made with tortoiseshell pickguards, since you originally stated that you thought that 'the rule was if it's a custom colour and it has a tortoiseshell scratchplate, then it probably isn't original?'
Original Burgundy Mist & Candy Apple Red offsets are indeed more likely to be found with white pickguards, however I've seen a fair share of Jags & Jazzmasters in these colours that however feature tortoise pickguards, so I probably wouldn't apply 'the rule' so easily here either.

Certainly if I took a Burgundy Mist Jazzmaster with tortoieshell into Music ground or denmark street in the UK eyebrows would certainly be a raised..

For sure - but that's probably because these shops would immediately start to get nice visions of the price they will ask for your guitar once it has been taken out of your hands and put into the shop's inventory...

[zhivago]

Certainly if I took a Burgundy Mist Jazzmaster with tortoieshell into Music ground or denmark street in the UK eyebrows would certainly be a raised..

For sure - but that's probably because these shops would immediately start to get nice visions of the price they will ask for your guitar once it has been taken out of your hands and put into the shop's inventory...

ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

[eggwheat]

Im not sure I agree..Blonde and olympic white were almost always tortoiseshell anyway. Burgundy mist and candy apple were nearly always white scratchplate..

That is exactly the reason why I mentioned that there were a.o. plenty of blonde & Olympic White (which are both custom colours) offsets made with tortoiseshell pickguards, since you originally stated that you thought that 'the rule was if it's a custom colour and it has a tortoiseshell scratchplate, then it probably isn't original?'
Original Burgundy Mist & Candy Apple Red offsets are indeed more likely to be found with white pickguards, however I've seen a fair share of Jags & Jazzmasters in these colours that however feature tortoise pickguards, so I probably wouldn't apply 'the rule' so easily here either.

Certainly if I took a Burgundy Mist Jazzmaster with tortoieshell into Music ground or denmark street in the UK eyebrows would certainly be a raised..

For sure - but that's probably because these shops would immediately start to get nice visions of the price they will ask for your guitar once it has been taken out of your hands and put into the shop's inventory...

Sorry, I should have spelt it out more accurately 'if it is a custom colour and it has a tortoiseshell scratch (apart from white,black and blond) it's probably a refinish'.  I still stand by that.

Ive seen, studied and taken apart plenty of 'customs' with TS scratchplates and sadly all the evidence pointed towards a refinish having taken place.  take the sparkle finishes on this page, both the Fender museum pieces are 100% correct we know their history, with matching headstocks and white guards...as you would expect. The other two, the purple and the silver look wrong straight away and point to a refinish with the TS guard and the plain headstock. I dont believe fender would have produced such a guitar. Old refishiners never attempted to do the headstock because the transfers were impossible to get.

As for the shops, no they would immeadiately think it's a refinish. I guarantee it.

Now here's a pic of a guitar I would consider to be proper legit Fender original Sparkle finish! Amazing!

Here's a quote from the original site about it "1962 Jaquar Pink Sparkle. With matching pink sparkle peghead, the owner claims this guitar is original. Since the peghead decal did look original, I would have to agree. The sparkles are much larger than the standard Fender metallic finishes. A very rare color (too bad it's not a Strat or Tele). Source: guitar show"

[Terry Wright]

I have a gold sparkle Jaguar that I believe is the original finish, but the clearcoat on the body seems very thick. The peghead clearcote is not as thick, or shiny. The sparkle matches on both areas though. Did sparkle finish bodys have a thicker clear/epoxy type finish or is it, as I suspect, that the body has been recleared? 

[serial]

Sparkle finishes, especially with the larger flake, have to be thicker.  The flakes can be tough to cover on the body with all of the contours and shaping, whereas the headstock is flat.  Not always easy to get the flake to "lay down" over curves.
Here's one of mine that's on its way home after a LONG time getting finished in bigassed bass boat metal flake.  The headstock was easy, but the body took a long time b/c of the issue described above.