"Boots Aged" Vintage '70's Style Fender Jazz Bass Pickguard Celluloid Tortoise/White Custom Relic'd

"Boots Aged" Relic'd '70's style pickguard for Fender Jazz Bass. This fits the 1974 through the 80's, has the thumb rest holes above the strings on the top edge and has the pickup cover holes drilled.

The one in the photos is REPRESENTATIVE of the guard you will receive, as these are all made to order. The material and relicing will be the same, the only difference will be the swirl pattern of the tortoise. This is actual celluloid, which is POURED, so no two swirl patterns will be the same. This is not that crappy looking PVD tortoise that has a printed pixelated repeating pattern, it's the real stuff.

Our resident restoration guy Nicky "Boots" Spagiglione (henceforth referred to as"Boots") had a project; to recreate to exacting specifications a pickguard from a '65 Fender Jaguar for a longtime customer. He did all the normal stuff guys and dolls to do age guards, the widening of the bevels, the staining of the edges, etc, but the original pickguard had these beautiful rounded sloping inside edges that Boots couldn't figure out. It wasn't until the owner told him he'd actually sanded it down about 20 years ago to try to get rid of some deep scratches that it dawned on Boots. He would need to sand down and re-polish out the new guard to reproduce that look. So he did. And the result was glorious. So glorious in fact that I asked Boots to do one like that for my '73 Thinline Tele. And so he did. And again, the result was glorious. It didn't just look like a typical "aged" pickguard you normally see,there was something more to it. These guards had a look and feel to them that seemed more genuine somehow. It definitely gives it a more authentic look than the run of the mill "aged" pickguard you see for sale on Reverb and eBay. He has made about a dozen of them so far for friends and clients. A while back I convinced Boots to do a run of them and see if anyone else out there looking for something a little more authentic looking would be into it. And so he did. Boots made an 8 hole Stratocaster, an 11 hole strat, standard Tele, Telecaster Thinline, Musicmaster, Precision & Jazz Bass, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang,and one for the Vintage Modified Bass VI. We still haven't thought of a better name for them than "Boots Aged"; maybe "double aged" or"Re-Aged." "Twice Baked?" Making them is a time-suck, for sure, but it's worth it. We couldn't really make a realistic profit on these unless we charged $150 or more for each one--and that's crazy--so we won't do that. For now anyway...For now we just enjoy making and offering these up and getting cool pictures of them installed back from customers.

The Process:

The 4 ply celluloid tortoise guards come in from WD with the wide bevel option, that saves Boots some time. He scrapes the top tortoise layer on the edges to get more of a shallow angle to expose more of the celluloid and give it a jewel-like appearance. He then stains the bevels first, then sands off some of the stain before using a tinted lacquer to seal the stain and give the edges that aged amber tint that looks like it's been in a smoky bar for 50years. Then he set them in the back of the shop in the sunlight for a night and day, to make sure the lacquer is dry and to impart a little UV on them at the same time. Then he sets about the sanding down and polishing back out. First with 1200 with a focus on that tortoise top layer edge, then 1500, and a round of 2000 before it's finally polished with 3M Finesse It II and then cleaned. They definitely reflect The Right Amount Of Only Vintage Light;)

This listing is for the "Boots Aged" Jazz Bass Guard.