The Jaguar

Trivia and info on the chrome-covered shortscale with the look you either love or love.

Introducing the Jaguar: quoted from Fender’s product catalogue 1962/63

“FENDER JAGUAR – The Jaguar, Fender’s newest addition to their line of Fine Electric Instruments, presents a new and exciting concept in the field of solid-body guitars. The neck of the Jaguar is a short 24″ scale containing 22 frets, and may be ordered with a size narrower or one of two sizes wider than standard neck width at the nut. A new “Fender First” in the Jaguar is the Fender Mute. This movable string mute is attached to the bridge and may be activated or disengaged by a light touch of the finger. With the Fender Mute it is no longer necessary to remove the bridge cover and dampen the strings with the hand to shorten the sustaining period of the notes. Other features of the Jaguar are: newly designed wide-range pickups, on-off pickup switches with controls making possible six different tone selections plus standard tone and volume controls, rhythem circuit, Fender “Floating Tremolo”, “Off-set” waist design, and adjustable neck truss rod. The new Jaguar is unhesitatingly recommended to those desiring complete instrument versatility.”

Original Fender Jaguar Owner’s Manual

Fender product catalogue title (1963/64)

"the choice of professional and student musicians everywhere"

1965 manual: PDF
Thanks to Craig G. Neeley, USA for sharing. Due to the storms of time and maybe with the help of some pet, the last page disappeared somewhere between 1965 and today.
Update: The PDF-file, as I found out only today (30.5.2007), has made its way into Fender’s own “Archived Owners Manual” page, as “Jaguar® 1965″. It is indeed the same PDF, same size, and the last page of the manual is missing, too. The internet is a small village. :-)

User Reviews

First hand reviews from users around the world can be found at “Harmony Central“, be it instruments, amplifiers or effects. Most of the reviews are biased of course, but it’s a great place to get some over-all impressions, and sometimes very funny to read. I have found two different categories with Jaguar reviews:

’62 reissue (MIJ/CIJ/MIA) reviews
General Jaguar reviews

Have a l00k at the gallery…