Spector 12ver

[mc2NY]

Well.....recently picked this up. A 20+ y.o. Spector 12ver husk. Dual-truss, 7-piece neck-thru with abalone inlays. It's routed perfectly for TBird pickups and has posts for a Hamer 12ver bridge, all,of which I already have for it.

Also have all the Schallers I need.

Just needs to be painted and put together.

Also snagged a same period fretless Spector, complete except for the PJ PUPs.

Long story....but they were sitting at a luthier friend of mine.s shop, apparently a loooong time. He got them in a pile of stuff he bought from someone years ago. He isn't familiar with 12vers, so just had it sitting  on a shelf all these years.

While snagging two cool Spectors might normally be a cool enough story.....that is the boring part of the story. My friend also happened to grow up as a close pal of Jaco Pastorius in FL and NYC. He can also play great and toured as bassist in Blood Sweat & Tears.

So.....he pulls out a 1960 fretless Jazz Bass that Jaco gave him as a present many years ago. That alone was cool to see. I didn't think he'd actually hand it to me to play. Even cooler.
And that after I played a jazzy "Norwegian Wood," to have him say "very cool" was even better.
The bass is a natural color, recleared over the typical screw holes from a missing pick-guard...inlaid plastic wood in the defretted neck that is cleared over with somethng. Incredibly cool bass that played fantastic.

I had brought over my Lane Poor Minima 5-string that Lane gave me years ago and one of those oddball semi-teardrop Gibson prototypes I have. He said I hold the record for the two weirdest basses to walk i to the shop together.

Will qdd a photo of the Spector later. The one I have is too big to upload.

[Highlander]

Nice story ... being a predominately fretless player and a fan of the aforementioned player, a degree of envy has to be admitted...

[mc2NY]

I'm going to see if he will let me take shots of the Jaco bass and write a story for a magazine.
The baxkstory about the bass is really cool, as is the actual bass.

This guy also had Jaco's main two basses for months, after paying off a $400 bar tab Jaco gave the basses away for. Also has a way cool pic of Jaco hanging out of the passenger window on this guy's old VW Scirocco.

Would be a cool story for a magazine, considering the recent Jaco documentary film.

He also knows that I have a never routed 62 Jazz Bass body Leo Fender gave to the guy who made the plastic rear body protectors in the 60s, that was used as the master template. He offered to match all the routes and complete it exactly to the Jaco Bass if I wanted.
......but we both can't decide if the finished Jazz is cooler....or a NOS never routed 62 body with all the documentation from Fender is cooler.

Opinions?

[Highlander]

It would always be a "parts-bass" Jon...

If you have a thing for Jazz bass' then have it built and don't consider it to have an intrinsic value... You're a serious collector and in a position to remain so, so think of it like my PC... no provenance, not original, but priceless and irreplaceable to the owner, because he knows her back-story, and nothing else matters, really...

[mc2NY]

Yeah, that's exactly where we are both at.

It would make a cool build...and being able to have a luthier who owns a shitload of early 60s Fender Basses do the job and match it to qn actual Jaco bass, would indeed be the optimum situation

.....bt the two of us are still saying "BUT.....where the hell would you ever find another NOS, never routed 1962 Jazz Bass body with all the documentation and backstory?"

So, it may ver well be more interesting UN-built.

But you then get those who are of the opinion that it is a waste to have the body sit around not beng used.

I'm leaning toward leqving it as a NOS never completed oddity from Leo Fender.

[Dave W]

I don't know what I'd do in your situation. It does have value as-is, and there's no shortage of Jazz Basses in the world.