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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink How in thee hell…

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Were teenagers able to afford the Jaguar or Jazzmaster in the early 60’s?

The price for a Jag was 379.50 in 1962 which in todays money is roughly 3700 bucks…!

Were Fender guitars not as ubiquitous as it seems in surf groups at the time or did it just happen that people had more extra spending cash than we do today?

image

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 16:01:53

I think this is why you have all those 60's photos of kids posing with their gear. It was hard won!

Site dude - S3 Agent #202
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"It starts... when it begins" -- Ralf Kilauea

In the early 70's, I took on a second job, mopping floors in a store, twice a week, for $25.00 a week in order to buy my Fender Precision Bass, which cost me between $300 and $400 dollars (it's been so long I don't remember the precise amount. And Tqi, you are right, after that I had my amp to buy as well. I guess I mopped a lot of floors! Big Grin

Patrick

Because they didn't buy them. Not outright, anyway.

Back in those days there was the marvel of hire purchase (is it called an instalment plan in the US?), where you paid a deposit, took it home and paid it off over the year. As long as Dad signed for it and your gigs paid for it, it was a great arrangement.

These days we have credit cards for those purchases you can't afford (more correctly they should be called 'debt cards' but I guess they wouldn't be so popular), but in the 60s it was hire purchase. "Take it home today, pay for it tomorrow!' was a popular hook

In the UK it was nicknamed the 'never never', either because you never owned it and you never finished paying for it

http://thewaterboarders.bandcamp.com/

Last edited: Mar 03, 2023 01:59:18

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 16:06:38

Also, most teenagers never could buy one. In so many photos of teens with their early bands, they have cheaper guitars like Harmonys or imported guitars bought at department stores. The Jaguar was definitely not a starter guitar. If they started playing regular gigs and making money, they could get one then, and probably through the installment plan.

Or if they were lucky, they had rich family members.

Don't forget that most kids in bands at the time using an actual Fender usually had rich parents who'd buy it for them.
Or they bought them on loan and paid for it in terms when they had jobs. Or they simply saved for them and used a cheaper instrument, which most of them did anyway.

In Europe the kids couldn't generally afford a Fender, no matter which model. Given they were expensive as heck and add import duties, shipping costs and the extra kick the prices get when US things are being sold in Europe.

Have to say though that only a few years later the price of a Jag went down considerably because nobody wanted to buy it. Hard to believe, but Fender Jaguars weren't all that popular back then. They only got back into popularity because in the mid 70's in Europe kids in punk bands started to buy them again because they were so cheap.

Albums:
"Introducing..." (8 September 2021), "Impala '59" (17 July 2022), "De Favorieten Expres!" (22 November 2022 - charity album)
EP's:
Mr. Magnatech is not afraid of you! (2020), Surfin' the Tolka! (2021), An Evening With Magnatech (2023)
7":
Lana Del Rey/Do You Believe In Surf? (2020), Bundoran/Sweet Surfin' Sabine (2021), Cymopoleia/ Surfin' Demon Twist (2021), Dr Mabuse/Zombie Love Theme (2022)
Compilers:
Surfin' Kitty Xmas Vol. 2 (2021), Surfin' Kitty Xmas Vol. 3 (2022)
Sea Sea Rider (2022)
Surfin' Britannica vol 3 (2022)
Triple Agent IV compilation (2023)
Continental Magazine compiler (2023)
_An Evening With Magnatech (June 2023)
"Herr Magnatech Bittet Zum Tanz" (October2023)
7" "Do the Swine"/"Suvla Bay" (December 2023)
_Surfin' Kitty vol 4 (compiler)

https://magnatech.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/magnatechmusic
https://www.magnatech-music.com
https://sharawaji.bandcamp.com
https://sharawaji.com

If I'm not mistaken (not an expert) this was still the era of Keynesian demand side economics.

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

I got my first electric guitar at a swap meet. I bagged groceries to get it.
My friend had a Stratocaster.

I was very jealous.
He had a car paper route and earned his money.

Edwardsand is on it. I’ve sat in and chatted with many first wave surf bands from the early 60’s and they all reminisce about their first cheap guitar and the all the band plugging into the same amp!

Craig Skelly

Little Kahuna
www.littlekahunamusic.com
The Breakaways
The Curl Riders

Having lived the era, the answer is simple; most players never got a Jaguar. I would have been thrilled to get a Mustang, when I started playing, in ‘66. The ‘60s were a prosperous time, by some measures. Almost anyone who worked full time could afford a house, at least in most places, but the wealth we take for granted, these days, was out of reach for many working class people.

It’s not a simple thing to try to equate the economy of that time to the economy of the present. My parents were fortunate to purchase a very nice home in a Denver suburb, in 1969. It was the crowning achievement of their lives. I could cover a check for what that house cost. It’s not that I’m rich, but the economy has expanded that much, since the ‘60s.

In the mid ‘60s, color TVs were far from ubiquitous, in middle class homes. Most people bought used cars that were, at best, way down the depreciation curve. Our family was solidly middle class, but luxuries didn’t really show up until my father was in his ‘50s. Both of my parents worked, and I was fortunate to have a Harmony Rocket and a Silvertone amp.

At the time, I wanted a Gretsch Tennessean, or a Jaguar, but it would have taken one heck of a windfall before my parents could have afforded something like that, and such a windfall would have been better directed towards actual needs, like car payments, or home improvements. To the best of my knowledge, my parents had no savings, or if they did, it was probably on the order of $100.

The kids that had Fenders, probably had parents in the medical field. I imagine that finance plans may have helped some into owning Fender gear, but easy credit wasn’t as easy then, as it is now. The gear seen on the album covers of young artists was probably paid for with record advances.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

I never saw a jaguar or jazzmaster in the 60s, at college in the early 70s. One mustang in that time. Most kids bought used. Strats were uncommon then too, at least where I was.

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 16:06:12

mad_dog wrote:

I never saw a jaguar or jazzmaster in the 60s, at college in the early 70s. One mustang in that time. Most kids bought used. Strats were uncommon then too, at least where I was.

There was a band, in our town, that played a local TV show over the noon hour, and the lead player had a Jaguar. Beyond that, the Jaguar was mostly a guitar I saw in the Fender brochure. There were Strats around, and Teles were something I would associate with older guys, at least locally.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

mad_dog wrote:

I never saw a jaguar or jazzmaster in the 60s, at college in the early 70s. One mustang in that time. Most kids bought used. Strats were uncommon then too, at least where I was.

That's because hardly anyone was playing on Jazzmasters and not at all on Jaguars in the period 1966 - 1977. You could get them for a song in that period and they started coming into the general love area again from 1978 onwards when members of punk bands started to buy them because they were so cheap. Somewhere in that period Fender considered the Jag a failed model and actually was thinking of discontinuing the model whole as it didn't sell. Not 100% sure, but I think they even halted production for a bit and then started it up in the late 70's, early 80's again when the model started picking up interest again.

Albums:
"Introducing..." (8 September 2021), "Impala '59" (17 July 2022), "De Favorieten Expres!" (22 November 2022 - charity album)
EP's:
Mr. Magnatech is not afraid of you! (2020), Surfin' the Tolka! (2021), An Evening With Magnatech (2023)
7":
Lana Del Rey/Do You Believe In Surf? (2020), Bundoran/Sweet Surfin' Sabine (2021), Cymopoleia/ Surfin' Demon Twist (2021), Dr Mabuse/Zombie Love Theme (2022)
Compilers:
Surfin' Kitty Xmas Vol. 2 (2021), Surfin' Kitty Xmas Vol. 3 (2022)
Sea Sea Rider (2022)
Surfin' Britannica vol 3 (2022)
Triple Agent IV compilation (2023)
Continental Magazine compiler (2023)
_An Evening With Magnatech (June 2023)
"Herr Magnatech Bittet Zum Tanz" (October2023)
7" "Do the Swine"/"Suvla Bay" (December 2023)
_Surfin' Kitty vol 4 (compiler)

https://magnatech.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/magnatechmusic
https://www.magnatech-music.com
https://sharawaji.bandcamp.com
https://sharawaji.com

Jaguars, and Jazzmasters, to the best of my knowledge, were out of production for some time. Bridge problems were well known among Offsets, even back in the ‘60s, and the fixes and setup tips that we enjoy these days were not nearly as well-known back then, as they are in our Information Age. Back in the ‘60s, many people took their guitars back to the store for something as simple as a string change or replacement. There weren’t any Internet forums where information was shared. Beyond that we now have products such as high-end bridges, nylon bushings for the bridge posts, and the myriad of guitar products which didn’t exist in the ‘60s, but which make life better for all guitarists, these days.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Sales of Jaguars were pretty low all along, but quite poor in the 1970s, and they stopped making them in 1975. Fender Japan restarted production ca. 1985. Even though some punk and other contemporary bands were using them in the late 70s and early 80s, the used ones stayed cheap back then. I bought mine in 1985 for $300 with money earned from my summer job working at a tile store. Then when Nirvana broke big in the 90s, Jaguars truly became popular and prices of used ones skyrocketed.

And now you can get a Squier Jaguar for close to the original price of a Fender Jaguar, and that is not adjusted for inflation.

edwardsand wrote:

Sales of Jaguars were pretty low all along, but quite poor in the 1970s, and they stopped making them in 1975. Fender Japan restarted production ca. 1985. Even though some punk and other contemporary bands were using them in the late 70s and early 80s, the used ones stayed cheap back then. I bought mine in 1985 for $300 with money earned from my summer job working at a tile store. Then when Nirvana broke big in the 90s, Jaguars truly became popular and prices of used ones skyrocketed.

And now you can get a Squier Jaguar for close to the original price of a Fender Jaguar, and that is not adjusted for inflation.

That is consistent with what I remember. Jaguars were what I refer to as an “aspirational guitar”. For a parallel example, a Gretsch Country Gentleman was an aspirational guitar that we might see on the cover of a Chet Atkins album, but most buyers couldn’t afford. Instead, Gretsch sold Tennesseans to people whose attention was attracted by seeing a Country Gent.

Casting my mind back to my earliest days as a player, I went to the music store in hopes of seeing a Jaguar, but it was much more likely that I’d see a Mustang. When it came to buying, the Jaguar was out of reach, but the Mustang was, at least, feasible. Simply put, aspirations for a Jaguar probably sold a lot of Mustangs.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

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Last edited: Feb 02, 2024 16:06:05

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