I couldnt help myself and picked this up pretty cheap.
i was told its a 65 reissue? which looks correct as it has no contour and white tip kluson style tuners.
now the serial number starts with O which puts it to 93-94, where the 65 reissues around then? or where they only available in japan?
its definetly fairly old cause there was a couple of stickers on it and you can see how much its yellowed.
anywhoo it plays fantastic, i love these mustang necks. and its sounds fairly decent aswell, i dont hate the pickups but they are pretty low output.
I was thinking about changing them, but im not sure what to and i was thinking a white guard aswell?
heres some pics
now the only thing is im having to sell this to help with the cost, which i only just got back.
i really like it but i like the better.
the aria/mij guitar from my other NGD post http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39458
Yeah, the neck stamp looks like it says Crafted in Japan too so it's not going to be a new one. The 69 reissues were around in in the late '90s, early '00s if I'm not mistaken, so a serial for between 1993 and 1994 would perclude it from being a '69 RI, which is allegedly not as good as the '65 RI. All Mustangs of that era were Japanese (and to this day).
Looking at the little patch where a sticker used to be it really does look like the body has faded significantly.
Prognosis: CIJ '65 RI
As for the changes, the pickups are wound for vintage output that I feel have plenty enough for what I play, but we is all different. Also, I love the tort/white combo, and yours has a nice red hue to it, so I vote keep that as well. Very handsome guitar!
Yeh thats what i thought , i did take the neck off and it said MG66 and the serial puts it to 93-94 so id say your right.
either way i love it, i acutally just went to play it and it stopped working, it kept cutting in and out.The volume pot is scratchy and both the switches stopped doing anything.
im pretty sure i have some spare switches and pots, if not its an easy fix anyway.
cheers for the input.
oh anyone got any suggestions on pickups? ive had some dimarzio virtual vintage heavy blues befopre and really like them, but i woulnt mind trying something different.
It looks a little odd to me because I've got so used to seeing the bridge and control plate gap from the pickguard with the vintage ones and the more recent RI models but that's not to say it's a bad thing that it is how it is.
Cleaning the switches is quite easy but a little time consuming and involves some soldering to get them apart (a ground wire is soldered from a lug to the casing on each). Annoyingly replacements are relatively expensive. I'm sure you'll manage to weigh up the time vs cost of cleaning or replacements and get it sorted. If you do may I suggest changing from the not very useful at all stock wiring to something that holes some more purpose. For example you can wire one switch as a bridge/both/neck pickup selector and then the second switch to do something worthwhile. One example is regular controls/bypassed tone control/bypassed both controls. With that set up you can have the volume and tone knobs on, say, 7 out of 10 and you have a switch that has a softer bassier sound, a softer standard sound and then a both controls on fully sound. Or you could try series/parallel switching. They're easy to do and the diagrams are available online.
so the serial number 'crafted in japan" puts it to 96-99' thats cool, not really to bothered when it was made as its an awesome guitar.
yeh im going to take it apart again and spray the switches, the only this is the neck one is pretty hard to put in the back position, so it may be broken but ill give it a go.
im still not sure about the guard, i dont hate it but i think a white one or maybe mint green would look pretty cool.
