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Thomann sent me a Paranormal JM XII and a Charcoal Frost CV 60s Jaguar. Arrived today. Here's the Jag fretboard.

For comparison, here's the XII headstock (same lighting same phone camera). The fit and finish are spectacularly good - high end Fender quality, just about.

We need full pictures. And congrats! Thomann is a long way from you.

Yeah, not one of my wiser moves. It’s been a weird year.

Thomann were very decent about it and offered me a discount around 15%. Since it’s fully functional and can likely be made better looking, I’ve accepted that.

That's nice of Thomann. Show us the full pics and tell us about them guitars a bit more

Well for now -

Are those Indian laurel fretboards, because they look horrifically light coloured to me.

Yep. I have to stop taking photos on that charcoal grey carpet, it makes everything look weird. Renting so not what I would have chosen. The XII looks rosewood-y but could use an oil.

In these pics the XII looks more like the Pao Ferro that was on my old (now Shad’s) Vintera Jaguar.

Actually looks quite nice- I’m usually not a fan of Indian laurel- purely a visual thing (my Jazzmaster has one but I’m not sure how long that neck will last on it)

Both look nice to me. My affinity strat made 8 years ago has a rosewood board that looked almost orange and super bright if you compared it to other rosewood fretboards. It got a tad darker with the time and oiling, but I didn't mind it when it was bright. There's an element of defiance to it too

So - after an hour of cleaning, sanding, wetsanding with oil, steel wool with oil, and buffing, I got it looking better. Still got a huge light area on the high strings:

Overall, the dusty look is almost gone. It's still covered in file marks (you can see the high E edge looks like it's been chewed) but I tidied up the frets and it looks OK from a few feet away:

Ironically I oiled the XII fretboard as well, and it did almost nothing!
XII is a knockout to play, a bit harsh in the pickups, and the Jag is pretty excellent with a similar glare, I don't know how a neck pickup can sound bright but it does. Might change pots, might use the ... <checks notes> ... "tone" control.

My Squier CV Mustang had a very dry fretboard as well.

My Squier CV Silver sparkle jag was dry but has gotten better with oiling and playing.

My Gretsch has also has a Laurel fretboard but seems to better than my Fender guitars.

I dunno why phones won't take a straight up image these days, but take it from me that the mint green was too mint green. Got a Musiclily parchment guard off eBay, not a micron-precise match but no mods needed.
Before:

After:

At first it looked white, but it's barely off. Top-to-bottom new parchment guard, original mint, white guard on the 50s Precision.

New vs old:

Big improvement; the mint guard looks like it should glow in the dark


nb: I hate mint guards

I don’t mind a subtle mint, and I saw a 64 Strat once and it looked great.
Frosty looking good these days, the fretboard calmed down after two intense oil binges.

That looks really really nice

Man if squier shipped them looking like that last photo it would justify the hike in all the prices.

I would love to get my purple one that good looking