VINTAGE BENCH TEST BLONDE AMBITION
Had Fender approached Mary Kaye a couple of years later than it did, the most sought-after 1950s Fenders of all may have looked something like this. In fact, this guitar is probably just about as rare and collectible as Jazzmasters get – and it’s only the very earliest 1958 examples with black pickup covers and metal knobs that might trump it.
It’s still a very early one, as evidenced by the gold anodised pickguard. Leo Fender was obviously keen on the idea, no doubt as a method for reducing the interference that plagued his preferred single-coil pickup designs.
He tried it first on Stratocasters, then Precision Basses and
