http://stores.ebay.ca/The-STRATosphere

The URL above is for an eBay vendor who appears to take brand new Fender (and Gibson) instruments, dissassemble them and sell off the parts. Naturally it's a safe bet there will be no factory warranty on the sale of a 2011 Strat neck sold without it's body or vise-versa. Still I have to wonder if FMIC knows of this operation and if so what they think of it. Better yet is the other question that comes to mind. Is this an unofficial, off the record way for FMIC to sell off blems? Does anyone have any experience with this vendor? Are these parts in as new condition without any "issues"?

On the one hand I'm glad to see there's an option for folks who break something on their guitar and wish to keep some degree of at least a semi-authentic nature of their guitar intact. On the other hand this seems akin to legalized marijuana sales and an ideal avenue for less than honourable folks to create the fakes we so diligently try to avoid. Now that I know about this vendor it seems (to me) to devalue all Fender guitars everywhere. It makes me wish Fender employed a "numbers matching" serial number scheme in which the body and neck were both indelibly tagged with the same number. At least on the American models.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I should add that I knew this was happening, I just thought it was happening in some dark basement somewhere, not out in broad daylight.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Haven't seen that link before, can't comment on blems or if they exist, I wouldn't worry about devaluation as a genuine Fender guitar is what it is. Thanks for posting. Looks like another option for the after market crowd.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Dunno what the problem is. The fella buys some guitars, they then become his property. He can do as he pleases with them.

It's not illegal to sell that which you own.

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No no and no

Nothing wrong with it. I've bought parts from them before.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

Show of hands, who wishes they came up with that?

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Rated "M" for meaty.

What, the name? Me.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

I wish I'd came up with the business plan.

Anyone remember BigJay. He was quite friendly with the owners. A Husband and wife. They must have made a mint.

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No no and no

I go there quite often. Especially now that I am about to put together a Partscaster. I see nothing wrong buying used parts to fix or build a guitar. I for one will never sell a Partscaster as an authentic FMIC guitar.

I can tell you that people that do this make much more money than selling these guitars intact. The body and neck alone will pay for the guitar, then you sell the other parts to make the profit. Stratosphere is most likely where I will purchase my neck for the guitar I am building. It is a lot cheaper than having Warmoth build one (and it comes with the logo).

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

I really like this though. I got a fine neck for a discount (I negotiated, hehe)

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

I realize it's legal. Else the vendor would have been put out by now. The legality of it was never my question.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

"Show of hands, who wishes they came up with that?"

I sure wish I had jumped into that game early. Reliablefender (and his ebay store The Stratosphere) wasn't the first -- there was an eBayer called n.aalox who apparently bought new MIM Std Strats a dozen at a time and parted them out. He was still big when reliablefender started out, but the Stratosphere offered parts from higher-end Fenders and that's a better business model (there are more people who want to upgrade their MIM Stds or build high-quality partsocasters than people who want to build partsocasters out of MIM Std parts, and they're willing to pay much higher prices for higher-end parts).

Reliablefender started out small. He would part out one or two lightly used guitars at a time. Then he'd use the money from those sales to buy more guitars and more expensive guitars. In those days you could sometimes track the parts back to guitars he had bought on eBay. Eventually he got to the point of parting out brand new guitars, Custom Shop guitars, and even vintage guitars while still moving a lot of lightly used parts. Along the way he developed a high reputation and so he regularly gets higher prices for his parts than most people can. It would be very hard for anyone to compete with him now.

He was definitely a one man operation at first (or a husband/wife team). He may have employees or associates now (probably does given the huge volume of parts he sells).

There's a newer seller who goes by the name of reliablegibson. As the name suggests he primarily parts out Gibsons. I don't know if his operation is related to reliablefender (other than using the same business model).

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I don't have any problem with people parting out current regular-production guitars or even recently discontinued regular-production guitars. I'm kind of uncomfortable with the idea of taking apart old or rare guitars.