Hi guys

Here is just something, I was thinking about, being that I am a quality inspector, (Nuclear Industry) and a bit of a fanatic about details lol.

There are basically, two main components that make up a Fender product. I realize that there are dozens of individual parts, but the two main or largest parts are the neck and the body.

As we all know ,Fender has their own methods of dating and marking their components as they progress through each department.

If you buy, (like mine), a 2006 Highway One,with a serial number that states Z5221486, we know that it has built between the years 2005 - 2006. Since mine was originally bought on March 17,2006, (mine was bought used but I am aware of its history.)
I can most likely assume, that the guitar, was built sometime in 2005.

Yes, looking at the body and the neck, will in most cases, show date markings or some sort of markings, that were applied by the production / assembly crews on the lines, but markings can be altered,erased etc. after leaving the plant.

One way, I think, that would solve many issues, when it comes to dating a guitar and to securely find out, what it is you actually have, is for a micro chip to be installed (on the assembly lines), inside both the body and the neck of the guitar.

Then, you would know, that your body was final processed, say on August 3 , 2005 and the neck was build on June 15, 2005. No matter, if the two dates, may not be close, Fender would be able to give the FINAL product a distinctive number, that would tell them that ,this guitar is Z5221486 and that it is made up of body #12345 and neck #67890.

If in the future someone decides to but a older guitar, say an Original 1975 American Stratocaster, by having the guitar scanned at an authorized Fender dealer, that would be set up with an online scanner, they would be able to say without a doubt that yes your body and neck match up to the final serial number that was given to that guitar.

This would stop people from saying that it is an "Original 75" , when it could be a badly put together fake, having a wrong body as well as a wrong neck coding.

I know there is a company I heard of (and they do have a web site), that will insert a micro chip device inside your guitar for security purposes, in case your guitar gets lost or stolen.

Now, I am not a guitar manufacturing expert ,

but people what do you think?

There has to be a sure fire way to stop the selling of bogus fender products, with incorrect parts or mixed parts or out right fake components, that never saw the inside of a Fender factory ever !!!

It is so easy, for example, to buy a after market maple neck and apply a fender decal , but lets not even go down that path ok lol

Just some food for thought!



JASTER

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Gear:
2006 Pre-upgraded Highway One, 3 color sunburst, with Vintage Noiseless pickups and old school, small headstock and fender logo.

Remember....

Live...Laugh...Love...and keep on playing !!!
Music is a gift, for all to enjoy!!!!

I think thats a great idea.

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2012 American Vintage Telecaster 1958
09 Fender american deluxe strat.
97 Gibson les paul special P90's double-cut
65 Princeton reverb re-issue
2010 Guild Gad-F40e

It's a great idea, but someone would figure out a way to fake it.
So it wouldn't solve the issue once and for all--just make it harder going forward--and it wouldn't address fakes of older guitars.

Not saying, don't do it--just that it wouldn't solve the issue completely.

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

Why would Fender want to waste money on anything like that. They want you to buy from authorized Fender dealers. Why should they care about aftermarket resale of items. There is nothing in it for them but the upside that those who get taken find out the hard way the meaning of authorized dealer.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I agree, as Fender only makes money from the original purchase, and any other transactions after that, are not their responsibility. I recall seeing in the StewMac catalog that there are little devices that can be implanted in a guitar, and a person with the right kind of scanner can see if its registered and/or stolen. Perhaps something like this can be used to to verify if it is a fake or real, but it would be up to the owner to install the device. Then its a special, proprietary type of reader, so even if it does have the device implanted, unless someone has invested in the special reader to pick up the implant, the implant is pretty useless.

Anyone looking to buy anything used needs to learn how to research into these things BEFORE purchase. If I had a dollar for the number of times I have seen someone buy something and not look into whether it was real or not until after the purchase, I could have bought a couple guitars with that money by now. In this day and age of the internet, people have the tools at their fingertips to be able to look into how to tell a real from a fake, but if they choose not to use those tools, its their fault. Besides, it seems like people now more than ever forget that most of the times, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true...

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

For those as don't know, this is the type of musical instrument microchip system in question:

http://www.snagg.com/

Stewart-MacDonald used to sell those for $24.95 per unit or $99.98 for six. Though interestingly they don't stock them any longer - I wonder why?

From that we can see that the unit cost to a bulk purchaser such as Fender would be very low: even putting two chips in each guitar as suggested (one in the bod, one in the neck) would only add a handful of dollars to the production cost of an instrument. I see no reason why Fender couldn't offer it at least in their more expensive guitars as an added feature.

Some boutique builders have been doing exactly this for years.

However, for the reasons Cvilleira indicates I find it unlikely we'll see this in most parts of the Fender catalog anytime soon. After 60 years they haven't yet even got round to convincingly branding the bodies as well as the necks, after all. They have a lot of ground to make up on this...

Cheers - C

I agree with you it doesn't make much business sense to integrate chips. If you want to make sure it is the real deal buy it new from the authorized dealer. If you have need to secure it after then it is up to you and might be a good idea to make it more marketable in the vintage market. This used and vintage market is where Fender probably does not make any money other than free advertizing.

Hey is't this forum type of near free/inexpensive advertizing "vehicle"