MIM P-Bass oddity !

[MatelotFripon]

Last night, my son and I decided to try to resurrect my trusty old '93 MIM P-Bass, the first bass i bought brand-new with my own money….the whole thing was a real mess, broken pick guard, busted pickup, broken nut, loose tuners….. that's what happens when you want to be Pete Townsend !
As I took the neck apart, I noticed something weird….the neck was stamped 93 and the body was 91 !
Is that usual practice from MIM Fender ? Anybody experienced something similar ?
I'm just really curious about that….

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: MIM P-Bass oddity !

My factory fretless P Bass has a headstock decal that dates to Fall 1978 and a stamp in the pickup cavity that reads Feb 1979.

These figures only relate to the time of manufacture of the necks and bodies. The parts will spend an indeterminate period in a parts bin before being assembled into complete working instruments.

Eighteen months is a pretty wide time gap. It is faintly possible that somebody at the dealership switched bodies and necks between two instruments to get more attractive permutations. On the other hand, it is not really in their commercial interests to do this.