I recently read an article shining a little light on a mere detail
about pre-cbs fenders which I found very interesting and I thought worth sharing as
I never knew this until now.
What has been called and believed to be clay dots was apparently not clay at all.
The material used for dot inlays was in fact vulcanized fiberboard, which essentially
was made of cellulose.
As decades went by, due to oxidation, play wear, finger oil and such, it turned
from an off-white color to a more yellow-brownish color, resembling the appearance
of clay.
As I’ve been looking closely at the transition era from Fender to CBS, a lot of
basses seem to still retain these dots more or less throughout 1965.
And I kept wondering why some of the dots were more white in color, plastic-like,
and not clay or pearloid?
This seems to be the answer.
https://precbsstratocasters.com/vintage ... clay-dots/
