It’s an absolute monster of a Strat, and ticks all the right boxes for me in sound, feel, and looks..but having pulled it apart, I’m not so sure the body is US made.
The neck checks out and looks legit (thanks to Fender’s pinpoint accurate serial # system, it can be dated anywhere from 1979 to 1981), and aside from a lacquer crack along one side of the skunk stripe, it’s in fantastic shape. The awesome thing about it is the profile - it’s totally unlike the big U shaped 70s necks. It still has some depth, but it feels slender and fast, and it’s easy on my injured fretting hand. I guess I’d call it a narrow, deep C. Obviously, it’s been drilled for 4 bolts. I’m not a 3-bolt hater but I’d rather have 4, so that’s fine with me. Plus it gives it a cool late 60s Hendrix Strat kinda vibe.
The 70s F-tuners were replaced with locking tuners that look almost exactly like Schaller M6s, but they’re unbranded. Any ideas? Whatever they are, they’re smooth, accurate and super stable. I filled the old holes with furniture repair wax for a reversible repair that’s almost invisible.
Pickups are Lollar Blackfaces, and they sound great. As far as I can tell, the string trees, wiring harness, and trem system are all vintage. And maybe the jack, but I haven’t pulled that out to check
I can’t tell when or where the weird 3 ply eight hole guard is from, but it has nice wear and patina so it’s staying.
And so, to the body. It’s awesome - light (no 70s Strat backache!), resonant, nice grain, and one of the nicest 3 tone bursts I’ve ever seen. But is it USA made?
It’s definitely a Fender lol, but when I went looking online I couldn’t see any mention of their Genuine Parts series being made in the U.S. - which is weird because I coulda sworn there WAS a U.S. line when they were first introduced. Anyways, the more I look at it, the more it looks like a Mexican made Classic 60s body. At a glance, the tooling seems the same. The serial number seems to point in that direction too. But some things are definitely different. For one, the trem cavity was sprayed (they don’t seem to be usually), and under the paint is a handwritten “60s SB E-commerce”. I’ve never seen a mass-production body earmarked for something specific, so I’m guessing it was for promotional use? Secondly, the tooling hole under the pickguard isn’t flat like most of the other Mexican bodies I’ve seen, it’s got that smaller round bottomed hole in it too. The paint is also much more vibrant than the other Mexican 3-tone bursts I’ve seen, including my Player series Strat, and there’s no red toner under the guard (none of this is a dis of the Mexi stuff - it’s freaking amazing what’s you can get for the money these days - just an observation lol). So, maybe a prototype before they actually launched the Genuine Parts range? Dunno. The plot thickens…
Ok….so that was a lot. Thoughts?
Couldn’t leave without a gratuitous shot lol.
