Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition 1959 Jazzmaster Reissue

There isn’t much in the world that is cooler than a custom colour Fender Jazzmaster, in our opinion. With it’s faded Sonic Blue finish, anodised pick guard and barrel knobs this Custom Shop Jazzmaster certainly looks the part.

First launched in 1958 as Fender’s new top-of-the-line flagship model, the Fender Jazzmaster is rarely, if ever, seen in the hands of jazz players. Its radical (for the time) off-set solid body was perhaps considered too modern by jazz players used to playing more traditional hollow bodied archtop guitars. Instead the model initially found success as the guitar of choice of the emerging surf music players in the early 60’s. It then fell out of favour for a decade before being rediscovered by a number of new wave players in the 70’s, most notably Tom Verlaine of Television and Elvis Costello. From there the Jazzmaster has steadily built up a devoted following mainly among indie or alternative players and is now pretty much THE guitar in these circles.

This example was built by the Fender Custom Shop in 2019 as part of a Limited Edition run produced for a Summer 2019 event. Billed as a 1959 reissue it is in fact visually closer to the earliest run of Jazzmasters produced in 1958, complete with its anodised guard and metal barrel knobs. By 1959 the guard had been replaced with either a tortoiseshell or white guard and the knobs replaced with the white Stratocaster style knobs. Perhaps Fender didn’t want to cause potential confusion with the ’58 60th anniversary reissue from the previous year and so labelled this a 1959 Jazzmaster? Who knows? What we can say is that the Custom Shop have done a brilliant job in creating a killer Jazzmaster that just oozes vintage mojo and class.

So what makes this one special? The first thing to grab the attention is the look. This one really does look super cool – almost too cool if there is such as thing. That’s all fine and good, but how does it play and sound? In a word, fantastic. The neck profile is a nice comfortable medium C with a gentle taper going up the neck which coupled with the rolled edges of the fingerboard and smoothly dressed fret ends make this feel like a nicely played-in vintage neck. The AAA rosewood fingerboard has a dark chocolate colour and along with the aged genuine clay dots furthers the impression of a real vintage neck. Sonically the pair of hand-wound flat magnet Jazzmaster pick-ups are as close as could be expected to true vintage tone. We did an AB comparison with a 1960 Jazzmaster and there is very little to tell them apart. The pick-ups in this reissue have that slightly darker and more pronounced mid range that vintage black bobbin JM pick-ups seem to have along with a crisp top end. They really do sound great.

There are a couple of more modern features such as a 9.5in fretboard radius and a RSD bridge. The RSD bridge has been something of a revelation. We’re used to JM’s with either the vintage, and often problematic, bridge or a StayTrem, so there was some degree of initial scepticism about the bold RSD bridge design. This was immediately quashed as soon as we picked up the guitar and played it acoustically. This is a loud and resonant guitar acoustically and is the biggest sounding Jazzmaster unplugged that we’ve come across so far. A lot of this can be attributed to the RSD bridge we think.

The Journeyman relic finish is tastefully done and has just the right amount of fading, light discolouration, small nicks and lacquer checking to look convincing and is the icing on the cake as far as the vintage vibe goes.

Being a Limited Edition this guitar is sure to become increasingly sought after as time goes on and will hold it’s value better than a regular Custom Shop reissue.

If you are looking for a killer sounding and playing Jazzmaster that just oozes vintage cool but don’t want to pay the substantial figures that vintage examples are now fetching, then this one is well worth checking out. It ticks all the right boxes.

Comes with a G&G brown tolex Custom Shop deluxe case and a leather booklet containing the Certificate Of Authentication, Shop Floor Traveller and hang tag.

Lord Fuzzman has reviewed this very guitar on his YouTube channel and below are the videos for the Ultimate Offset Bridge Shootout featuring the RSD bridge vs a number of other popular JM/Jag bridges using this guitar, and also a general review of the guitar through various pedals. Special thanks to Lord Fuzzman for giving permission for us to use these videos.