Is this legit a '66?

[Bob Shade]

Hi Tom, well it is slightly confusing.

When they made the necks and bodies, they were stamped right away. However, not all of the necks and bodies due to 60's tooling technology were a perfect fit. So, they would take the bodies to the neck pile and try necks until they found one they thought fit well.

This means that different dates on the neck and body were not unusual and actually probable. Max is correct, there were 66 Mark 1's with the same features as the late 65's, and some of these had 65 parts.

Just like people refer to a bound side jack set neck as a 63, when some were made in 64.

So can you really go by features to determine the year of manufacture?

To a degree yes, however if you want to split hairs you can take the guitar apart and look at date stamps and pot codes. I prefer not to disassemble a guitar to determine the date because it can chip the paint from the neck pocket as well as the neck pickup having a chance to go dead from being disturbed. You can go by pot codes to a degree, but that can be misleading as well. There have been some early Mosrite guitars dated in magazine articles incorrectly because pot's that were sitting the shop around for a year or two before being installed were used and the guitar was dated this way.

So all of these signs of dating are a good rule of thumb, but how do you date a guitar with a 65 and 66 date like yours? It is really a 65 neck and a 66 body that was assembled in 66. I have seen several of the 65/66 guitars as well when restoring them. Like I said it can be confusing. That is why I generally will refer to a year by the features. It is easier than taking the guitar apart or splitting hairs in conversation. I see either way as being fine but this is my preference.

Bob