Legit Maple Cap?

[eb2]

Take a look and what do you think?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-Fender-Precision-Neck-RARE-/151002956263?pt=Guitar&hash=item23287a41e7

I haven't got a lot to compare to, but my thought is that for that date it is too much of a slab. Fender would have been geared up to mill the face of the neck for thin veneer boards.  But it could be legit.  And it could be an older neck refinned.  Or phony as a three dollar bill.

[Highlander]

Awfully clean face for a piece of timber that's nearly fifty years old, and very shiny too...

[godofthunder]

 The nut looks askew, the frets look new and poorly set. The cap seems to thick and not even in radius.  Without having it in hand it's tough to say. Rises a eye brow though.

[Hörnisse]

Looks like a replaced board.  Too bad because it is an old neck.  Here is a headstock shot of late 60's neck I had.  You can see the curve of the veneer on the cap at the headstock.  Just like on the rosewood versions.

[JazzBassTbird]

It's definitely a replaced fingerboard. It's a slab board not a round lam, (wrong for '64, and I don't think Fender ever made any slab maple cap necks anyway) and looks like there's a some kind of ledge behind the nut, Fender never did that.

Looks like there was once a Micro-Tilt gizmo on it or something.

[godofthunder]

Yeah I saw the micro tilt scare.................totally baffled me for how old it is supposed to be.

[Hörnisse]

I can't believe it is up to $450.

[Dave W]

I'm no expert but that looks like a modified 70s neck. Certainly doesn't look like a factory original cap.

[eb2]

Other major duh - the decal is wrong for late 64.  Even if it squeaked through with a spaghetti, it should have all the patent numbers.

Unless it was a 50s P bass, owned by Buck Owens, and sent back to the factory for a replaced spiffy maple board without ruts and ugliness.  Not Buck's bass player - Buck himself!  The board was ground off and replaced by fresh maple, then they stamped the Oct 64 stamp.  Fender refinished the butt end of the neck, but the 50s decal stayed!  The body was refinished too!

I should open a big buck intraweb vintage guitar place, and show up at vintage shows with a dyed-hair perm and wearing black to buy strats.

[JazzBassTbird]

I think it's probably a (butchered) '64 neck. The stamp looks right, and whoever did the hack job on the fingerbaord wouldn't be savvy enough to get that right. If it is a '70s neck with a fake stamp, it'd have to be early '70s. Even rosewood board necks got the skunk stripe by the mid '70s and this doesn't have one. By around '73 the side dots went from pearloid half in the board/half in the neck to black dots below the board...even shaving off the original board wouldn't remove enough material to go past the black dots.

The Micro-Tilt thing would've been added much later, not original to the neck of course. Probably was on a post '74 Jazz Bass or a humbucker Tele bass body at one time.

I can't believe it's been bid up that high either! Could be shillers, though.