Fender Made in Japan Traditional 60s Jazzmaster with Wide Range humbuckers
An offset with Wide-Range CuNiFe humbuckers? Yes please!
4,5 / 5,0 | 
Fender Japan has come up with yet another desirable guitar that’s only being produced for the domestic market. Although this Traditional 60s Jazzmaster Limited Run with Wide-Range CuNiFe humbuckers would make a lot of offset fans happy everywhere, it’s only available in Japan.
60s Jazzmaster Limited Run Wide-Range CuNiFe
I guarantee you that if Fender made this new Traditional 60s Jazzmaster Limited Run Wide-Range CuNiFe humbucking pickups available worldwide, that they would sell them by the proverbial bucketload.
FIrst, the fundamentals: this guitar has a Three-Tone Sunburst gloss finish over a basswood body, with a 9.5″ radius U-shaped maple neck and a nice ’60s style bound rosewood fretboard fitted with 21 vintage-style frets and pearl block inlays. Apart from using basswood instead of alder or ash, the specifications are fairly traditional for a ’60s Jazzmaster.
Wide-Range CuNiFe
The real star of the show is the pair of Fender Wide-Range CuNiFe humbuckers that should give you a rich bell-like tone with plenty of character. These modern-day recreations are supposedly very close to the ’70s originals, themselves highly sought after and change hands for silly money on the used market.
Fender Traditional 60s Jazzmaster with Wide-Range CuNiFe Humbuckers · Source: Fender
A Traditional Offset?
Well, yes and no. Fender has included traditional elements like a 6-saddle vintage-style bridge with a floating tremolo tailpiece for example. Not only is the body made from basswood, you also forgo the Jazzmaster Rhythm Circuit. Instead, have the standard Volume, Tone and three-way toggle switch setup.
Japan only? Come on Fender, release these worldwide · Source: Fender
Japan only
The price of ¥ 165,000 – including a hard case – translates to roughly £1050 or €1260. That’s pretty reasonable, as the pickups are not exactly cheap, costing £209 each. I would buy one of these guitars in a heartbeat if they were available outside Japan. Fender really needs to start offering decent models like this outside of the Japanese market. I believe that they are desirable and would certainly sell well.
Is it just me, or is this just a great-looking offset? Lee Ranaldo helped kickstart the whole offset movement with the Jazzblaster mod that used old ’70s Wide Range humbuckers. I could see this new guitar being very popular with Sonic Youth fans as well.
RRP – Yen 165,000 incl. hardshell case
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7 responses to “Fender Made in Japan Traditional 60s Jazzmaster with Wide Range humbuckers”
not only did i ‘kick-start’ it (start it) but this particular gtr is EXACTLY like my orig ‘Blaster – sunburst, block markers on the frets, 3-way toggle and no other bs switches. it only lacks the white binding on the fretboard to be an exact copy. I’m curious is the WRHB are really made the old way – bc the ones in my sig model are not. very curious about this!
They are indeed making them again like they used to.
Fender still sell the versions you are referring to (i.e. not like the originals). However, Fender have now sourced a new supplier of Cunife and sell the “Wide Range Cunife” pickups too. They are pricey, but not nearly as much as used originals are being sold for.
Fender really should have let you know!!
The picture angles are pretty straight on but to me it does look like bound neck … just a quite thin one, most block inlay fender necks do tend to be bound.
You removed the 2nd upper bout tone circuit from your original jazz’blasters n the later Sig edition guitars?
While no new production pickup is of course going to sound exact apparently these sound and measure very very close … and while not cheap, nor that expensive. The original story I believe was these particular magnets CuNiFE were primarily produced for the automotive industry for use in odometers(?) … but when they switched to a cheaper or more available magnet or a new design, the basically stopped being made, as fender was just using what was available, cost effective and good enough! and but the FWRH legend was born … basically the PAF of fenderland.
Though oddly they have announced 3 distinct types of this pickup, a strat set, a tele set and an jazzmaster offset um set … that themselves are different in form factor but really for a drop-in replacement vs your tele deluxe pickups into a Jazzmaster body. still you could easily put the strat set into a jaguar, n any combination really could be made to work … without routing out bodies, maybe hacking a pickguard or two. The strat set into a bass IV etc … Mustang … all sorts of fun ahead.
… still tone is expensive, volume is cheap, so for now I’ll just be loud.
addendum/correction: by ‘start it’ I meant the idea of WRHB in a Jazzmaster; we were early fans of the Jazzmaster but obviously not the first….
I saw you play Jazzmasters live when I was 15 in ’87 and you pretty much influenced me to go seek them out. So I blame you guys and J Mascis for my fixation on these guitars.
Haha, nice -and we would cite Tom Verlaine and Elvis Costello, among others, who were using them before us…
I grew up listening to Marquee Moon, so I get that one, and Costello was always an influence. But I think Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, and MBV were my biggest offset influences as a teenager. Thankfully, saw them all live in that era.
You were cool when I was a teenager and signed my Death Valley EP, and so I was always a fan.
https://imgur.com/3caDVlO
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