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Hello all. What year did Fender switch grounding the strings from the bridge thimbles to the tremolo?

I have a jazzmaster body that i bought in 97 or 98. It was a refinished two tone sunburst at that point. I refinished it ten years ago or so. Has a faint pencil date of 11-66 or 11-60 in the neck pickup cavity. I figured I could narrow the date down since i have the hole for the tremolo ground. Thanks!

Unless someone says differently and Jim Shine’s site is no mas, I think it was post ‘64? Around the time when necks were changing from clay dots to plastic dots and binding, and then switched to blocks and binding.

The ‘65 dot and binding that I had was grounded at the bridge. I currently have a ‘63, but I haven’t opened it up in 20 years. I am pretty sure it’s grounded at the tremolo. The ‘62 Jag is definitely grounded at the tremolo.

A '62 Jaguar is grounded through the bridge. There is no rout through to the tremolo cavity. My '63/64 Jazzmaster is grounded through from the control cavity to the tremolo cavity and to the tremolo plate as are my 2 1965 Jaguars.

As with everything Fender, it looks like a definitive answer can not be given.

I am not taking my June, 1962 Jaguar (with transitional slab board) apart to check, but I am positive that it grounds at the tremolo.

I don’t see any reason for Fender to ground a Jaguar and a Jazzmaster differently. I did a search and found 2 posts about this on OSG.

From our very own Fullerplast (pretty definitive to me - wish he were still around) :

Fender quit using the bridge cup ground in early '62. After that, all the vintage ones were done like it the photo.

The photo he included is missing, but they were discussing tremolo grounds and the wire wraps over the edge of the body and is stapled in place.

This shows that Gringopig and I can both be correct, based on our experience with vintage guitars. An early ‘62 would be grounded at the bridge, then changes were made to the neck and the ground wire location in mid-62.

A different discussion shows a 1964 Jaguar that grounds at the bridge, but isn’t attached at the thimble. I have seen this method a few times myself. Actually more than the thimble attachment.

viewtopic.php?t=99426

That post has pictures to confirm, so who knows? I thought the change was made late 1964 or early 1965, but there are pictures showing both methods being used from both those years on various Jags and JM. (Edit to add that the photo is from a Jaguar with a December 1964 neck date, so late ‘64, and during the transition period dates I suspected) Now the same transition might have occurred in the opposite direction in 1962.

TLDR - ground wire location is no way to date a Fender guitar body.

I have a slab board with neck stamp May '62 so it may be that later Jaguars have the tremolo rout for sure.