The lack of relative profit to be made in the European market during the 1950s kept Fender's presence rather low on the continent. As you note, UK trade restrictions prohibited importation of Fenders until the early 1960s. Fenders were available in Germany, nonetheless, during the late 1950s, as Lennon procured a tweed Deluxe in Germany and Harrison commented that he saw Fender guitars in a Hamburg shop. All of these may have been bought in the US by the shop owner and brought back to Germany. By the early 1960s, though, Fender, along with Rickenbacker and Gibson were exporting guitars to the continent. Until the CBS era there wasn't a concerted effort on Fender's part to maintain a sizable presence in the European market.Fall reverb wrote: I would say - not very.
I could be mistaken, but I think that Fender first introduced itself properly on the European market during the Frankfurt Musik Messe in 1961, but before that trade show they never really tried very hard to gain a foothold on the European market.
Take for example Hank Marvin's Stratocaster - this model had already been on the market in the USA since 5 years, but Cliff Richard had to order the Fender from the USA, as the brand was not available yet in the UK in 1959 (due to trade restrictions, as far as I know);
Interestingly, Hank Marvin wanted a Telecaster but he did not know it. All he knew was that he wanted the same guitar as James Burton whom he presumed used a Stratocaster because it was the more expensive model. So he asked Cliff Richard to order a Stratocaster and only realized afterward that he'd gotten the "wrong" guitar.
'tis the most likely scenariofuzzjunkie wrote: I suppose Spelter could have bought it from a GI stationed in Germany and just embellished the story?
The time line still wouldn't work. The blockade was '48-'49 and nothing but food was going into West Berlin then. The Berlin Wall didn't go up until '61 by which time he had the Jazzmaster already. The story is just that: a story. Even if he had been a POW interned in the US, which would mean he was born no later than 1925 ( most Germans detained in the US, with the exception of some U-Boat crews, were captured in '43), he could not have bought a Jazzmaster until '58 regardless.fuzzjunkie wrote: Perhaps he was East German and defected in Berlin in the late 50s - early 60s? That's the only way I see the timeline working, otherwise he'd be at least 40 in 1965. I don't know anything about him, but if he were 20 at the end of WWII, it seems like a stretch, but if he crossed the wall during the Berlin Blockade or something and was detained, that might work...
My apologies for being a bit of a history dork here but I am a historian and I've written/published on the World War II POW program. Thus, I am a history dork
