Purely hypothetical and asked out of curiosity.

Before we start, I will say my view on their typical uses are this:

Those who put Fender decals on non Fender, or cheaper Squier instruments for the purposes of deceptive profit making are wrong. It's fraudulent and as far as I know, illegal. I do not condone faking instruments, or profiting from it.

Some people rebrand their Squiers as Fenders, not so much for profit, but to create the perception to others that they are not playing a "cheap, crappy" Squier. Still somewhat deceptive, still technically illegal and rather silly, to me. I don't really condone this either.

But in seeing many decal debates in other forums, I became curious.
At what point could an instrument be a Fender, and thus entitled to be labeld as such, to a degree.

If someone builds a Jazz bass from parts that are obtained from Fender or authorized Fender dealers, and are therefore genuine 100% Fender parts, is it a Fender? Since the parts are Fender and Fender will have made their money, could it, or should be able to be labeled "Fender Jazz bass", minus a serial number. Factory serial numbers do only belong on factory assembeled instruments, IMO. But this instrument would be, in all respects but it's point of assembly, 100% Fender. And Fender will have made the money on it, just as if it were a pre-assembeled, off the wall unit.

Leaving everything else aside, could the instrument itself be considered a Fender?
Just curious what you think.

Most of my nine Strats are "parts-o-casters", assembled using 100% genuine Fender parts (aside from some aftermarket pickups on a few). I consider them to be for all intents and purposes to be "Fender" guitars, though were I to sell one I would inform the buyer of the instrument's complete pedigree in the interest of full disclosure. Every stand-alone neck I ever bought already had an original Fender headstock decal and its factory serial number decal in place. Make of that what you will.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Well... not really and the prices for partscasters reflect this.

The component you're missing, and what most people are willing to pay for, is the expertise and experience of Fender's Labor Force, along with 60 years to back it up.

Don't get me wrong, there are many fine partscasters out there...

But, even though the parts may be 100% manufactured by Fender, it's still not a Fender.

... just my own $0.02

cheers!

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'11 FSR Am. Vtg. Ltd. Ed. CAR '57 Stratocaster (SN# LE02639)
'14 American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster
'12 Telebration Empress Telecaster
'99 Deluxe Nashville Telecaster
'12 FSR Telecaster HH
'10 Heritage H-535
'99 Martin DC-1E
'13 Lanikai Tenor Ukulele

Partscasters may fall in a different area, as the parts were, at one point, likely from factory assembeled instruments, and have been recombined into a new instrument.

But I am refering to something that was never from the factory and was never a complete instrument until the person assembeled it themselves, but is still 100% Fender in all but its assembly point. Should someone be able(or allowed) to physically label such an instrument as a Fender?

Of course, it should never be misrepresented as a factory original for sale purposes, but is the instrument itself entitled to the Fender name?



I am aware. And that is why people pay good money for genuine factory Fenders, and why others try to fake them. I am speaking mostly of the technicallities of the instrument itself. The other side of the coin, perhaps, to when does a heavily modified Fender cease to be a Fender and become something else, despite the factory logo.

you can not buy a genuine fender neck or body as parts that was not at some point a finished guitar. hardware yes. so your scenerio is not possible.

Perhaps it's not possible, or practical. But the question is a hypothetical one, purely academic. So assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that it is possible.

I once let an FMIC executive from Scottsdale play one of my "parts-o-casters". I mentioned nothing of its origins and let the gentleman indulge himself......for over an hour. Fifteen minutes into this session he flipped the guitar over, seemingly looking for a Custom Shop decal on the reverse side of the headstock. Finding it barren, he then demanded to know where the instrument came from and who built it. The smile never left his face even after I related in intricate detail what it was, whose parts were used, and who assembled it. As well, I suggested a few things to him that might be popular for Fender's regular production Strats based on my guitar and that suggestion was adopted a short time ago. It's the best endorsement for my work that I've ever received.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Groovy ZoomBa Baby! Yeah

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2012 Lefty American Standard Jazz
2017 Lefty American Professional Precision
2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD

I'd take any one of Arjay's parts guitars over anything the factory currently produces.

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Bill

I disagree. What people are paying for is "all original". They are afraid of getting inferior parts, or the aftermath of a routing cobble job, etc, is why they stray from partscasters.
Even vintage autos are worth more if all original.

I swapped necks on a Deluxe tele. The neck I put on it was a U shaped from a Deluxe ash tele to replace the original modern C. In doing so, I lowered the value of it, but it's still a Fender regardless. The "bolt-on" neck has a purpose.

I don't believe in adding decals. If it is not a Fender brand, it should not say it.

Authorized Fender replacement necks are a gray area where I have mixed feelings regarding the decals, provided they are being put on a Fender.

The OP is making an academic argument since all the basic parts were once factory finished and so a true 'clone' cannot be produced.

And, yes, I thought I had already conceded that there are many fine Partscasters out there... where is it written that the World's best Luthiers all work for Fender..??

I ain't knockin' Arjay's work and would be extremely honored to have one of his, Ceri's or Xhefri's creations sight-unseen, both because of the contributions I've personally read from them, as well as the reputations they've established on this Forum.

But of course that wasn't the topic of the discussion, which was; can a guitar not produced and sold in total by Fender be called a Fender.

The answer is obvious... it's NO !

In order to concede this, I'd say that there would have to be a major * on it... bigger than Roger Marris ever dreamt of... Fender Stratocaster*, Fender Telecaster*, Fender Jaguar*, Fender Mustang*, etc.

cheers!

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'11 FSR Am. Vtg. Ltd. Ed. CAR '57 Stratocaster (SN# LE02639)
'14 American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster
'12 Telebration Empress Telecaster
'99 Deluxe Nashville Telecaster
'12 FSR Telecaster HH
'10 Heritage H-535
'99 Martin DC-1E
'13 Lanikai Tenor Ukulele

The instrument might have value, but, it's not a Fender, so, no decal no exceptions.

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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.

I'm sorry, piecing together a strat, tele or anything else out of parts is not hard work. It certainly doesn't come under the header of luthier work.
Who can't bolt a neck on when the holes are all predrilled? If you can't do that, you shouldn't be opening a guitar case let alone restringing.
Bridge changes? 16 minutes was my record time, including action and intonation on a bridge swap. Not hard at all.
Swap bridge type. The hard work is already done, routing out the cavities or drilling the string holes. The most that is needed is a bit of doweling.
Yeah wiring can be tricky, not difficult but awkward. Planning what is needed and how to execute that? Well that comes down to experience more than anything.
Nut cutting, yeah that can be tricky if you're going straight from the leg. Boil the bone up, hack into it and all that gumf.
However aside from slot depth, with replacement nuts, it's minimal work that most could do with a bit of care.

It's not hard, it's certainly something anyone with a brain could do. It's not luthiery. So lets get away from that eh.
That doesn't say anything about people making guitars from Fender parts. Just about the quality of Fender parts and the beauty of their interchangeability.

Oh and Fender Licensed Parts means nothing more than that the company making them has paid Fender an inordinate amount of money to make parts of exactly the same size as the Fender equivalent.
It's absolutely no guarantee of quality. I've seen licensed parts that I wouldn't put on my fire to warm my toes by.

Non Fender neck, logo is a no-no in my book. If Fender didn't put it there, it has no right being there. It's their logo and up to them where they put it.

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No no and no

Well, mine IS a genuine Fender , but with a different headstock decal than there is supposed to be on it
I bought brand new, a 1995 3 colour sunburst 1968 Japanese reissue large headstock strat

I had to have it delivered to the shop , so never played it beforehand (remember in the UK , there wasn't always an abundance of different strats to choose from , without being ordered up for you )

This is the strat with the chunky "Fender" part of the headstock logo , but the small "stratocater " part, exactly like this one (no plug, 2 string trees , maple cap neck )



Upon seeing it, the "stratocaster " part of the decal was kinked under the laquer and skewed up in a "V" towards the second string

I complained about this and got some money knocked off , then a few days later was cleaning the tinted laquer residue from off the frets (there was loads which just kept crumbling off ) , when disaster struck .
I had the strings tied together with an old shoelace, to stop them springing about all over the place with the guitar on a thick towel on our kitchen table and the strings dangling off the table out of the way

One bit of laquer wasn't responding at all to my plastic scraper, so I switched to a stanley knife, using the back of the blade to scrape it off . Just then, our dog came past and one of the curls on the hanging strings caught her back, she yelped and jumped and the result was a nice scratch right across my fretboard at the 10th fret,. It was pretty deep, and wouldn't buff out, so a few weeks later (being fed up with not being able to bend any strings round the 10th fret due to a massive "clunk" everytime I did, I took it to a luthier in nearby Manchester

He said he could refinish it , incuding putting on a fresh decal and did I want bigger frets? . Seeing as he was taking them off anyway, I ordered slightly bigger frets .

2 weeks later, I took the body to him and waited while he set the neck up , he'd put a black nut on instead of white, which I had him change , then took my strat home

It played well, but after a month, I noticed cracks appearing in the laquer , so took it back . He realised what he had done straight away, he'd had a load of guitars to work on and had mistakenly coated my neck in the wrong laquer, which reacted with the minute residue left in the wood and started cracking, so I gave it back to him and waited another 2 weeks

As I went down to his repair room (basement of a music store) , he gretted me with "I had to redo all the frets AGAIN and will you settle for a transitional logo, we've run out of the correct one for yours"

I viewed the transitional logo and agreed to it, so he wanted to give the headstock another 5 or 6 coats of laquer over it, bt I said I'd do it instead (which I did), I put (over 5 days) 17 coats on, rubbing down after every 4 coats or so and buffed it to a mirror shine as I like a decal being completeley flush under the laquer, so this is what I have now . The serial no and "made in Japan" was sanded off the neck heel, so I had the serial no engraved on the neckplate along with "Fender"



and here is my handywork


THe laquer now has a few craze marks on the fretboard and back of headstock and looks really aged (naturally) and feels like glass (I had him put extra layers on the fretboard, which have been buffed really smooth and silky)

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Ted

"All right, guys, uh, listen. This is a blues riff in "B", watch me for the changes, and try and keep up, okay?"

So you are saying that this guitar is not a "real" Fender?

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Bill