December Birthdays 
OK, the short review:
HOLY CRAP!!!!! These basses SMOKE!!!! GO BUY ONE NOW!!!
The longer version:
So, the FedEx man (LOVE Saturday delivery, btw) just left the house about an hour ago after leaving me a long box filled with tweed and sunburst. Of course, I couldn't wait to open it. I bought it from a cat on Ebay who lived in SPOKANE, WA, and I'm in the Tampa, FL area. It's been on a truck all week, and I could hardly contain myself. He said "you're going to wet yourself when you open the case." He wasn't too far from wrong on that. OMG... it's gorgeous.
My wife said "has it even ever been played? It looks brand new." This thing is in minty fresh condition. No rust on the hardware, all the electronics are smooth and crackle-free. Hell, it was even IN TUNE!!! The neck is nice and straight, and far as I can tell, no dead-spot issues. He (or whoever set it up) knew what he was doing, because it was set up just about right. Gotta love it...
This MIM '62 RI has the Vintage Fender Jazz bass pickups in it. Sweeeeet... These are unbelievably warm and fat sounding p'ups. I took the p'up covers off to inspect the bridge, and did have to make a tiny 1/2 way turn of one of the low E height adjustment screws to lower it the tiniest bit, as it was just a tad too high in relation to the other three strings. Oh yeah, the bridge was replaced with a USA vintage bridge (same screw holes), and is very nice and solid.
The finish is classic sunburst with tortoise pickguard, which is my all-time favorite finish. I have a '95 G&L Legacy (sim to Strat) that Josh, our guitarist uses for the surf stuff, with the same finish, the only difference being a birdseye maple fretboard. The back of the neck and headstock are finished to give it an aged look (none of that blinding white-ish look of a lot of the standard Jazz basses). I didn't think I would like the reverse tuners, but I have to say that I kind of dig 'em now. All of them work great, and are quite smooth.
All in all, for $700 shipped to my door, I'm a very happy camper. This bass is every bit as nice as the new American Jazz's going for $1,200, IMO. Oh yeah, I got it with an aftermarket tweed case. The case, uhh... not so great. I mean, it's OK, but I can see getting a nice Body Glove bag for local work, or maybe a TKL, SKB or something if I feel like spending the extra dough on a really nice case. For now, this will work though.
I think I'm going to leave the covers off for now. I alter my tone a LOT with my right hand positions and parts of the hand used at any given time. Sometimes, I will use what I like to call a "meat pick." That's me pretending I'm holding a flatpick, but I'm not, and using the index fingernail and part of the flesh to get a fat, pick-like sound. Sometimes, I'll slightly mute with my hand at the bridge, to get a very percussive attack. With those blasted covers in place, I can't do that. Too bad though, because they look cool as hell!!!
I don't think you can go wrong with one of these, especially for the money. Folks here and elsewhere said the same to me, and they were right. I give two thumbs (and two big toes) up!
Aloha,
Kanekila
