Iconic Guitars Vintage JM Eleganté

Iconic Guitars’ Kevin Proctor, who refers to himself as “owner, chief builder and finisher, head of design, and all around shop lackey”, created the South California-based brand back in 2012. Along with master builder William Raynaud, whom you may know from WR Guitars and numerous other LA makers, he builds Iconic’s instruments that are now available in the UK.

Iconic centres on the classic S- and T-styles in three ranges: Vintage, Vintage Modern and Evolution. Our JM Eleganté, introduced in 2019, hails from the Vintage range and its lineage is clear. Dropping in around the price of a standard Custom Shop Fender and the majority of small-maker boutique guitars, what this model might lack in originality, it makes up for in style.

Sparkle finishes can get gaudy but this one stays on the right side of the taste tracks, beautifully framed by the double white edge binding, while the plastic knobs and pickup covers add interest, as do the white layers of the scratchplate edge. The large alder body contributes to a business-like weight of 4kg (8.8lb) and sits beautifully balanced on a strap. Bearing in mind the colour-matched headstock, you might argue that the fingerboard should be a black ebony as the Indian rosewood here is a fairly light brown and peppered with pearloid blocks and more white plastic binding.

The maple neck is slightly off quarter-sawn (Fender would likely call it rift-sawn) and it’s quite plain, though it does have some fine flecking – despite the sensible satin nitro neck-back finish, which appears lightly tinted. It uses a full Fender scale length (648mm/25.5 inches) but the ‘medium C’ profile might be a bit misleading as there’s quite a taper here from a 19mm depth at the 1st fret (with a relatively narrow 41.7mm nut width) filling out to 25mm by the 12th. With a compound radius and relatively narrow/tall Jescar frets (superbly fettled we might add), this is great craft.

These Jazzmaster-style single coils, made by Brian Porter to Kevin’s specs, retain that smash attack of the slug magnet poles with quite a wide, full voice: the neck pickup is superb in that regard, the mix is lush and 3D, while the poke and focus from the bridge is related to a Strat/Tele but with a little more depth and enhancement. A very classy, showy homage to the often misunderstood Fender Jazzmaster.

1 1. There’s no tricky dualcircuit wiring like the original; this simple set uses a three-way toggle pickup selector with master volume and tone, although both the knobs here say volume!

Photography Phil Barker

2 2. These Gotoh SD91 vintage-style tuners are extremely neat but they have staggered height posts, which means there’s enough back angle over the tidy bone nut without the use of string trees

3. Mastery is simply the best ‘offset’ bridge and vibrato and here it works effortlessly and stays in tune. The actual vibrato is polished stainless steel, too. Hardware that simply looks as good as it functions 3

4. This Starry Night nitrocellulose, with its silvery metallic flecks, is one of many finishes offered by Iconic. The brand also specialises in aged and worn finishes 5. Based on the original Jazzmaster style, these Iconic Revolution single coils feature measured DCRs of 9.12kohms at the bridge with Alnico 5 magnets, and 7.92k at the neck with Alnico 2 magnets 6. Featuring a bound Indian rosewood fingerboard with a compound 241mm to 305mm (9.5- to 12-inch) radius and narrow/ tall Jescar frets, the JM Eleganté plays as good as it looks 4 5 6