The Gold Foil Jazzmaster: Beautiful Mistake or Cult Classic?

Fender Gold Foil Jazzmaster year 2022

Everything started like any other day — checking guitars on Fender’s website. The usual suspects were there, and this guitar always popped up, but I never bothered to even look at it. Until one day, for some reason, I had to.

I’m not a huge fan of Bigsby bridges, but I have to admit — this thing was a fucking looker. So I started watching videos about it on YouTube, and then something unexpected happened: I started to actually like the guitar. Next stop? Reverb. I found listings in Europe ranging anywhere from 1450€ to 1750€, plus shipping. (US pricing? Don’t ask. Out of scope, out of mind.)

After seeing those numbers for a Made in Mexico guitar, I thought: hell no. That’s way too much for what’s basically second-tier in the Fender ecosystem. But then I found one in Finland for 1399€. Still pricey, but cheap enough to try. So I pulled the trigger — full impulse buy.

Then came the regret spiral. Right after clicking buy, I started reading the reviews. Watching more videos. And boom — “what the fuck have I done?”

People hate this guitar. According to the collective internet, nothing on it works: weak pickups, bridge issues, neck problems, and maybe even some kind of cosmic imbalance. Aura? Chakras? Third eye? I don’t know — I’m not fluent in esotericism. But I panicked. I emailed the seller (Tammer-Piano ja Soitin) and asked to cancel the order.

That was Friday night. By Monday, I figured the whole thing was just a bad dream. Until I got the shipping confirmation.

“Oh shit. No…” Still, I thought — fine, I’ll try it, maybe even send it back the same day. Honestly, in my head, that was probably the seller’s plan too. But then the guitar arrived. And here I am. Reviewing it.

First Impressions

So let’s start with the specs — the specs of this guitar in particular. You can read the official specs on Fender’s website. From here on, I’ll be talking about this guitar, not the model in general, because I just assume every guitar is not the same.

The first thing that stands out? The guitar came in a cardboard box. For 1399€? I don’t know, man — I actually thought I’d been scammed by Tammer-Piano ja Soitin. So I looked it up online, and yep — for that money, you get a sweet brown box with the guitar inside. Nothing else. I mean, even some Squiers — at a third of the price — come with a gig bag. But here? Not even a middle finger sticker from Fender. Call it whatever you want, but that’s just wrong. Even if I can admit I don’t actually need a gig bag, it still feels like cheap bullshit.

This guitar in particular was made in 2022, so it should fall into the same pile as the ones that showed up in all those YouTube “QC horror” videos. That said, besides the whole “just a cardboard box” thing — it arrived fine.

Small dent on the finish.

There are a few things that tell me this guitar was probably on display at the shop — a demo guitar tested and handled by clients.

First, it has this small dent. Maybe it bumped into something while it was there. I doubt it happened during shipping, but the seller can always say otherwise. To be honest, I’m not that anal about this kind of stuff.

Guitar hanger mark and not so clean finishing line around the nut area.

I assume the seller probably had this guitar hanging there for the last three years, collecting dust — which likely caused the marks around the headstock area.

But again, my life’s more exciting than bitching about this kind of stuff, so I’m not really blaming anyone. Just pointing out the facts and details of how the guitar arrived.

Guitar hanger mark on the other side.

Here just a look from the side of the headstock.

With all that in mind, I started playing the guitar — and it felt good.

The neck felt comfortable, which is all I need. (Insert here all the nerdy “U vs. C shape” talk.)

To me, comfortable is all you need to know. Hands are different. Finger sizes vary. So telling someone “U is better than C,” or that “this C is more like a D,” is just information that can’t be rationalized. And more importantly, just because you didn’t like one D doesn’t mean you won’t like another D. So yeah — comfortable. That’s all that matters to me. And this guitar has a really good neck.

The action was a bit too high for my taste. The Bigsby felt alright… until the arm fell off. The nut wasn’t tight enough — no biggie. The bridge works as it’s supposed to. Period.

Heel and Neck.

Bigsby B50 after adjusting the nut that holds the arm.

The performance of the guitar is really good. The pickups are clear, and the combinations can give you solid tones — somewhere in the world of single coils, but without actually sounding like your typical single coil.

The body balance also felt nice. People online were saying this guitar is super heavy — in this case, it weighs 3.709kg. For comparison, my old JMJM weighs 3.444kg. So if you do the math… how the hell is less than 200 grams considered super heavy?

I played the guitar for two days, and after that, I decided two things:

1 – I like the guitar, and I’m going to keep it.

2 – It needs a proper setup.

So I took it to my workshop to give it the attention it deserves — and to examine the rest of the details hiding underneath.

CTS potentiometers found.

No vintage cloth wires. Good or bad? Again — if you tell me cloth wires sound better, that’s a sign you need more problems in your life.

Neck and Middle pickups are the same.

I measured the pickups and got the following results:

Neck: 7.03k, Middle: 7.04k, Bridge: 7.33k.

They have a round sound — never piercing high, but not too fat either. In combination, they complement each other really well. Swapping them for something else is always an option… but why would you?

As a guitar tech, my experience tells me most people change pickups not because they need to — but because they think they have to. Because some brand sounds cool. And only in a tiny percentage of cases is it actually about solving a specific tonal need.

What about using the fucking guitar first?

Synthetic nut.

One thing I found weird was the ebony fretboard — matte-looking and kind of dry. Which is odd, at least in my experience. I’ve never seen a dry ebony fretboard on a new guitar.

The nut is synthetic, but again, I don’t bitch about nut material. Your mileage might vary, and sure — maybe that’s the end of the world for you.

Very dry “ebony”, or more like weird looking ebony, it just looks weird to me, hmmmm ebony?

Again the “ebony” fretboard, and very dull looking frets, and a bit sharp ends after 3 years.

With this, I’m probably voiding my warranty — but I’m that guy. You know, the one Thomann tells their customers to go see — “your local guitar tech” — when they don’t want to deal with returns.

So if I can’t do this… then who the hell can?

Fret ends filed, and frets polished to a nice smoothness.

The bitch of the necks to adjust, why Fender? just why?

According to my measurements, the guitar comes with 10–46 from the factory, but I decided to throw in a tiny bit more beef and go with 10–48.

The setup I did has the action at 1.75mm (bass) to 1.5mm (treble) at the 12th fret, with a neck relief of 0.20mm. The fretwork from factory handles that action just fine — maybe even a bit lower, depending on how clean you want your sound.

The bridge? Works as it should. And with the Bigsby in use, tuning holds fine. Again — this isn’t a Floyd Rose, but if you use the Bigsby like a Bigsby, it does its damn job.

The Bigsby B50 is enough for this guitar. And anyone swapping it for a B5 is probably just doing it because they can. It’s not worth it. That “upgrade” is mostly dick-measuring.

So… the guitar is a keeper. No, it’s not a “pure” Jazzmaster — but it is a really good guitar.

And when it comes to all the reviews out there? I can’t speak for all of them. I’ve only seen this one, worked on this one, played this one. Could there be bad ones out there? No doubt. That happens with every brand, every price point, every factory.

The real problem is consensus.

People watch one video and suddenly they’ve decided — they repeat what they heard instead of actually playing the fucking thing themselves. I was this close to doing that too.

So is it worth it?

Well… for 1399€, I got a guitar Fender will probably never do again. Maybe it was a failed project. Maybe even a bad idea on paper. But I bought a unique guitar that looks gorgeous, plays well, sounds sweet, and makes me want to keep playing. That alone is rare.

Is 1399€ “worth it”?

Well… a 1500€ phone isn’t worth it.

A 200€ dinner isn’t worth it.

An 8€ beer sure as hell isn’t worth it.

But we blow money on shit that isn’t worth it all the time. So if you’ve got the means, and you want a rare, beautiful, inspiring guitar — why not? You might get a good one. And if you get a lemon, ask yourself:

Can I fix it?

Can my tech fix it?

Can I live with the things that can’t be fixed?

Or maybe… do I just need to go to therapy instead?

Rock out with your cock out.