LeftyBassist.com

Hi all

A few months ago, there was a white 1966 lefty jazz for sale on basschat.co.uk with a 7AUG66A neck date stamp.
Strikingly enough, there is another lefty 66 still for sale through Haris Hire in the UK with the very same neck date stamp (see 2 pics)!
Not only that, but both basses have the inscription 'Paul' in the neck pocket of their bodies (only 1 pic attached).

How coincidental can this be? Has anyone else ever encountered or noticed this?

That's probably not coincidence. It's likely they did a run of left handed basses all on the same day as some templates need to be flipped to accommodate making lefty stuff so it is often done in batches with the larger builders.

Wouldn't that be funny if they were both made for McCartney but he never ended up claiming them or sent them back?

I've heard stories like that before... wouldn't be surprised at all.

Wasn't the Jazz bass he's been pictured with a '66?

Here's the picture.

Wow... yeah, you're totally correct, Bill.

Here's more info: http://www.thecanteen.com/mccartney7.html

If I was a betting man, I'd wager that these were all built for Sir Paul and he either only kept the one he liked and sent the other ones back or someone at Fender picked out the best one of the three to send to him.

Fender's gaff in sending a righty bass along with their care package to The Beatles is a pretty famous story, actually... maybe making these three basses was their way of making that up to him:?:

I wonder if anyone at Fender who might remember is still around.

I really hope I'm right... it'd be such a cool story.

This is just my opinion but I think I can guess about the right-handed bass. Don Randall probably said to send the Beatles instruments and so, they just sent right-handed instruments because no one did their home work. When the word came down, the person reasonable likely said something like," He's a what?!", "Oh God not another one of them......." "How the hell was I suppose to know!"

As for returning the other two, I can believe that. I remember hearing a story about Paul returning a Hofner Deluxe 500/1 with gold hardware for some reason. I think this same bass has been around the major auctions in the past. There was questions as to if he really took delivery of the bass before returning it.

Yep, that was my immediate thought too. Kind of hard to verify though, as anyone could have written "Paul" on there at any given time.

The OP said it was written in the neck pocket on BOTH basses... that's a very strange coincidence.

It'd be nice to see if it's also written in the neck pocket of the bass that Mac still owns.

I haven't got any pics of the other neck pocket any more. I had detailed pics of the (second) bass and its neck pocket, but haven't kept them, unfortunately. if I were to ask Phil Harris (the seller) again, I would post them and you could clearly see that both inscriptions' Paul' are written in quite the very same manner. Now, if you take into account that this inscription on itself is rare or strange in ANY 60ties neck pocket, I find this increasingly intriguing and it would be very worth further investigating, especially on 2 left-handed 1966 jazz basses, both rarities in their own right (pun intended !

I concurr with all the above-mentioned replies to this thread, even though it would be very coincidental that this could ever have any link to Paul McCartney. But then again, the fact that both basses are/were located in the UK just adds up to the strangeness of the matter . Of course, there could have been a guy by the name of Paul at the Fender plant who had to inspect lefty bass bodies, but then again...

Anyway, all advice would be welcome! Who could we ask for advice on this matter better than... ?

The Beatles certainly made good use of the two righty Fender basses they received.

Well the plot thickens. What's the story with these pix? Note that the 3rd photo is a different righty J, since it's got dot markers instead of block inlays. It would seem that all of these were taken post Beatles/Wings era, but I'm wondering if he just borrowed someone else's instruments or if any were his. Curious thing though is they appear to be studio photos and deliberately strung lefty (though I think the last photo of the dot marker bass is a true righty), begging the question why when he certainly owns his own instruments to record with.

The only problem I see is that the Jazz Harrison is playing has the oval key tuners and the Wings period photos have clover keys.

There's a picture of Denny Lane playing a Jazz that looks like Peter's first picture.

cool shot here....

I was sort of kidding. I'm guessing that Jazz might be Klauss Voormann's. as George looks as he did during the All Things Must Pass recordings.