Fender 65 Mustang Reissue Electric Guitar For Sale (2024 Update)

This is a great entry to the Fender lineup and a step up from Squier quality. The craftsmanship is far from perfect however. Nut slots not quite cut deep enough, fret slots cut a little too deep in places and sharp fretboard edges. That's about it as far as shortcomings though. The guitar looks killer in Burgandy Mist and it sounds just a good with the P90 pickups. The Pau Ferro fretboard compliments the looks and mine almost has a tiger's eye 3D effect going on which is an unexpected bonus. The 24' scale, modern C neck profile with satin finish on the back, combined with the medium jumbo frets and a 9.5 inch radius all contribute to an almost effortless playing experience. My one has a slightly heavier body that others I've tried which I'm very glad of as it eliminates any sign of neck dive that can plague these guitars (probably not helped by the oversize headstock). The guitar sounds fantastic clean with the P90s sitting somewhere between a single coil and humbucker and just as good with overdrive. The pickups are also not as noisy as I'd feared so you need not dread the hum. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this guitar and since I'm happy to file my own nuts, as it were, a little tweaking to ensure perfect playability doesn't worry me in the slightest. It's a keeper for sure.

Fender guitars have been a good buy over the last decade or so. The factories in USA, Japan and Mexico all maintain quite a decent level of quality. This one is one of about 5 Mexican-made Mustang Fenders that I had a chance to hold in my hands. And this time I was not disappointed at all. The guitar does have some "imperfections", but given the price, these are all absolutely tolerable. Much higher priced US-built Gibson guitars tend to have a lot more of such imperfections. I'm particularly impressed with the quality of fretwork. Again, it is not perfect, but better than one could expect. I checked the frets with a fret rocker took and did not find a single bumpy fret. The fret ends are surprisingly good too. My only regret is that, unlike a few years ago, now these Mustangs are supplied even without a gigbag. But it's okay. I could definitely recommend this purchase.

Sound: Today's guitars are all made on cnc's unless you get something like a US made G&L, those are cut out with bandsaws and routers, like fenders in the 50s up to the 70s. The neck pocket in mine is very clean and neat, the body routing is very clean, the frets were nice out of the box, no misaligned screws or parts, no blemishes in the finish or anything. Features: The least useful feature for a majority of people will be the rhythm circuit, it has its own volume and tone pots and is neck pickup only, with a much darker tone than the neck pickup on the lead circuit, leave the switch in the down position, and you never have to worry about it unless you want an old school jazz guitar tone. Then push that switch up. (It does old jazz guitar really well) Ease of Use: The jazzmaster has quite a bright bridge pickup, makes it well suited for surf, or spaghetti western guitar, but it also means distortion on the bridge pickup will cut through rather well. the neck pickup is strat like, but bigger and thicker. Like a strat neck pickup on steroids. Both pickups together results in a sweet soft sort of quack tone, due to the pickups being so far apart, it's not the same as a strat quack tone, but its very nice sounding. Then of course there's the neck only rhythm circuit which is very much like an old jazz tone (hence the name Jazzmaster)The pickups are generally higher output than most other fender pickups, and work well with distortion. A lot of people still think jazzmaster pickups are p90s. Nope, real jazzmaster pickups are roughly the same size, but thats where the similarities end. They don't even sound similar. This confusion is furthered by the old mexican player jazzmasters, the j mascius, and others that have P90's. Quality: Fender mexico didn't skimp on the electronic parts, the pickups are very much like a mid 60s jazzmaster in sound, even down to the gray bobbins and enamel coated coil wire. Pots are CTS, both switches and the jack are switchcraft, just like they are supposed to be. They should last forever. The trem is built well, but not exactly the same as the old ones, the trem arm is screw in, it really should be a push in arm, like all the old ones. Also, I think the hole of the trem arm in the top plate is way way too big, it only needs to be slightly bigger than the trem arm collet.The tuners are kluson like split shaft, loke fender used from the very earliest days until 68, they're not made by kluson but it doesn't matter the design is too simple to screw up. The frets are vintage, they're always described as tall and thin. They're not tall, but they are thin, it is a 60s styled guitar after all. But I think a lot of people used to 9.5 and flatter radiuses will have problems, it's a 7.25" radius fretboard, requires a bit higher action but a half hour or so of playing, you get used to it. It also has a truss rod nut at the heel of the neck, its a correct feature for all fender's prior to 1971, but man was that a bad design choice on leo fender's part. You either have to loosen the neck a lot or take it completely off to adjust neck relief, and hope you got it right.Now when I got my guitar I took it completely apart (I always do). What I found on the inside could be improved. First was an excessive amount of wire. There is a lot of wire in a jazzmaster, but they didn't even bother cutting the pickup leads to length. Both pickups had about a foot of unnecessary lead wire, so I fixed that.The other issue was a bad conductive paint job in the cavities. The jazzmaster is an electrically noisy guitar, they need all the shielding they can get. The conductive paint was one thin coat, and didn't even go up the sides of the cavities, it wasn't doing anything. From 1958 to the end of the original run around 1980 each jazzmaster had brass tubs in all the cavities, all soldered together and grounded. I don't expect that in a new jazzmaster, but they knew then that it needed shielding. The pickguard in 58 was also gold anodized aluminum, which was excellent for shielding. But the anodizing wasn't good, and the gold wore off after a few months so and looked awful. In 59 fender switched to plastic tort pickguards, with a thin pickguard sized aluminum shield underneath. Anyway I properly shielded the cavities. Also the pickguard only had aluminum tape for the toggle switch to the jack, and another piece for piece for rhythm circuit switch and pots. That ain't going to do it. I added more shielding, put it all back together and it was a major improvement. Recently I decided to see what a proper gold anodized aluminum pickguard would look like on ice blue metallic, and its VERY cool, looks like a 1960s california speed shop modded my guitar, might put some tele knobs on it sometime.I also made another modification, I had a 65 reissue trem and bridge laying around, so I put them on it. In the old days, the lock button, trem