I bought a 2nd-hand "Fender Strat" in a guitar shop in Stafford 8 or 9 years ago and have been trying to find some info on whether or not it's genuine and if so, what it might be worth.

It only cost me £350, but from what I managed to work out from the Fender book, it seems to have a 1959 neck. It is a MUCH thinner neck than the one on my 90's "60's reissue" Japanese Strat.

The bridge is a normal strat-style bridge which is branded ESP rather than Fender.

The pickups are old and yellowed, the body finish is a see-through blonde laquer, a tortoiseshell scratchplate that looks newer than the neck and pickups.

The other main differencebetween it and my Japanese Strat is that the top ridge of the body is thinner and "sharper" than on my Japanese Strat.

I let Lee Dickson (Eric Clapton's guitar tech) have a look at it a couple of years ago when I was working at Olympic Studios, but he didn't have any idea either.

Here's some pics... sorry for the size and quality...

In all her glory...
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5811/dsc00025ro5.jpg

ESP branded bridge...
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/153/dsc00027rd7.jpg

Old yellowed pickups...
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7210/dsc00028fa7.jpg

Old yellowed tone/volume knobs, new black pickup selector switch cover and newish-looking tortoiseshell scratchplate...
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9356/dsc00029sw2.jpg

Thinner/sharper than my 90's japanese strat top edge of top-down profile...
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8784/dsc00030zn8.jpg

Plain unbranded neck-plate...
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6412/dsc00031ak8.jpg

The back of the body...
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1548/dsc00032wl9.jpg

Old Grover machine heads...
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/97/dsc00034he1.jpg

Closeup of headstock - Pre-CBS "spaghetti" logo?
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5745/dsc00035qw6.jpg

I'vehad the neck off and there's no serial number either on the neck or in the neck-cavity of the body.

Any ideas anyone?

I figure it's one of 4 possibilities...

#1. It's a lost prototype worth millions
#2. Someone's stuck a '59 neck (and maybe pickups) on an ESP body
#3. It's a1959 Strat with a replacement bridge and possibly scratchplate
#4. It's a complete head-to-toe fake and £350 was too much.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Musumackem.

Well, it looks real to me. Try to get the pictures smaller and clearer.

_________________
"You won't part with your's either"

Fender American Standard Stratocaster 2006

Fender Standard Telecaster 2007

Very little can be learned from these pictures.

_________________
James Burton Upgrade Telecaster
Hot Rodded Am Fat Strat Texas Special (now featuring Kinman Traditional II pickups)
Fender Blues Jr.
SWR California Blonde
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Yeah, I realise they're a bit crappy, but I was hoping that between the pictures and the description, someone might be able to help.

The guitar looks legit to me, but then the pictures are so blurry that we might be seeing a fake ... so from your description the guitar looks legit, from the pictures theres no really way of knowing...

Take new pictures not blurry ones, front and back of headstock, take the neck off the body and take pictures of the neck pocket and the neck end, there should be some information there, also take the pickguard off and take pictures of the inside, and also pictures of the back of the pickups ... then we might be able to tell more

Decent pictures would be very welcome!
What makes you think the neck is from a 1959?
What kind of finish does it have? Is it sanded down and clear coated?

I think I can see the dowel marks ... which can indicate a vintage body.

What does it say on the back of the tuners? on the bridge saddles?

Do you have the dates off of the back of the pots?

See ... lots of questions to answer before we can tell you anything!

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Ah brilliant, this is exactly what I was hoping for... someone to direct me so that I can give the right information.

I thought the neck was a '59 after reading the Fender Book 6 or 7 years ago... I checked everything in there about old strats and came away with the conclusion it was a '59, though I can't remember any of the details now other than the spaghetti logo and the brown stripe down the back of the neck.

The machine heads say "Grover Deluxe" on the back.

Neck is laquered/varnished, but I don't know how to tell whether it is sanded or "clearcoated" (is that just American for "varnished"?).

The bridge saddles say "ESP", so either the bridge has been replaced or the entire body has.

There are no dates on the pots that I can see, it just says "M250kΩA"
on one line and "80 K" underneath that... unless that "80" means they're from 1980?

What are dowel marks?

Thanks for your help everyone, I really appreciate this.

I've taken some more photos... but I'll shrink them this time, so bear with me...

Other points of note... the wires are old-style braided wires, but they're very tight.... tighter than I'd expect - there was only just enough giev to hold the scratchplate at 90 degrees to the body with the scratchplate bottom edge right inside the pots recess in the body.

That coloured square on the inside of the scratchplate is a piece of masking tape with what looks like the letter M written on it. It appears to be written in ballpoint pen.

There's nothing written on the backs of the pickups.

Also, there are more scratchplate-screw-holes in the body than there are in the scratchplate, so at some point it looks like this body has had a different scratchplate on it.

And... the middle pot has an orange capacitor connected between the back of the pot (ground?) and the pin that is wired to the middle pin of the other tone control.

Hi musomackem: not my area of expertise by a country mile, so simply one or two observations that others might have comments on.

Interesting little pale wood insert at the end of the skunk stripe at the heel. Does that tell us anything? Also wondering about the shape of the control cavity. And what about the capacitor?

'Nother thing. Still a little hard to see in the pix: are those metal bushings in the neck bolt holes on the body? And are there bushings in the bolt holes on the neck heel too? Or is it just paint?

This is sheer speculation, but I believe metal bushings used in that way were popular with certain English guitar builders. The Wal company definitely attached necks that way, and I'm wondering if Roger Giffin did too. (Though it is also a user mod done by people who want to take their neck on and off a great deal, for air travel, for instance...)

Giffin is a name worth Googling: he had a workshop beside the river in Barnes, West London for many years and built superb guitars for many famous players. (He later moved to the US and I believe is still currently working for Gibson doing high-end stuff.) I know for certain that he often built his own necks (because I've seen his fret slotting machine), but he also sometimes used other makers' necks on his own bodies. For example, 1979 onwards Pete Townshend phased out his Les Pauls and moved on to a set of Tele-style guitars built by Roger Giffin which used Schecter necks. (Good bit of knowledge for ya, huh?)

You'd have to tell us how you came by that guitar, but a fun little theory might be that it is built by someone such as Roger Giffin using a genuine Fender neck altered to his own specifications. A wacky idea - and almost certainly wrong!

Now. To the important business.

You mentioned working at Olympic Studios? In West London? Conversations with Lee Dickson?

You don't get away with it that easily. We have to know more! Never mind this guitar: tell us your stories!!

- C

It looks quite nice, body and neck.

But I don't think it's a vintage Fender, sorry.

It appears to be of Japanese construction and may not have been a Fender (someone may have put Fender logos on the headstock).

Grovers and ESP are not right. Those are not CTS pots ... they are what you find on Japanese guitars.

Cheers.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

...Which is of course a far more likely possibility.

BTW: I wonder if musomackem would think of going back and shrinking those original pictures, please, so's we can view this page more easily?

Cheers - C

The tone cap looks like a sprauge orange drop xx uf @ 400v type. Not usually something thrown on a cheap fake.
That the guitar could be a fake doesnt mean that its not worth £350. Pensa, anderson, tyler all make some very nice fakes that cost a bit more than £350.

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No no and no

Right... metal bushings... yes they are metal bushings on the body in the neck recess, but the rings on the neck - they are actually just indentations in the varnish from the bushings on the body.

The capacitor looks relatively new to me. It says "Phillips", "0.1", "K", "250", and "MKT" on it, so what's that, a 100uF?

As for Olympic... yes the one in SW London... I was a technical engineer there for 4 years (and occasionally sent up to Abbey Road for that "corporate studio" experience - not my kind of place, I much prefer the dingy but friendly rock'n'roll-i-ness of Olympic as it was when I first started there. Unfortunately as time went on Olympic was becoming more and more like Abbey Road, and the more it did, the more empty it seemed to be, until finally I was made redundant a year ago - and now I hear the place has closed altogether - maybe they shouldn't've tried to turn it into Abbey Road All that history, all that legacy GONE. Criminal shame in my opinion.)

Lee Dickson's a top bloke... proper down-to-earth, always got time for you, and was regularly hanging out down in maintenance with us techies while EC was recording upstairs.

OK, if you want to feel jealous, I am the proud owner of a Marshall JMP-1 that used to belong to Simon Climie, (EC's long-time producer, formerly of Climie-Fisher), which has definitely been used for overdubs on some EC stuff. ...and no, I don't want to sell it

As with Ceri, I'm certainly no expert in this area so my comments should probably be taken with a grain of salt as it were.

Original or not, the instrument has most certainly been "altered" at one point or other...the bridge as you said, the apparent inserts on the neck pocket (which was a rather popular mod) and perhaps even the pick guard shielding as well, so I wouldn't count on a great deal of collectors value as a whole. People who are interested in these instruments as "investments" typically want the piece to be original and unaltered (barring other issues such as it being owned/played by someone famous such as Hendrix or Clapton or something). Also, without specific stamps, dates or numbers on the body (and it's been my experience that Fender was typically very good about these things) and without any specific, verifiable documentation on the history of this instrument, even if it is "the real McCoy", it's going to be VERY difficult to prove, thus reducing any potential collectors value even more. Unfortunately without any kind of proof that this instrument is of a given vintage (what you suggest or otherwise), as you've already discovered, it's going to be hard to determine if this is even a "real" Fender, let alone if it's actually worth anything at all. As I'm sure you are well aware, now a days even headstock logos and serial numbers can be very easily "faked".

Now that said, I would also like to add that vintage, collectors, lack there of, or otherwise...this doesn't mean that the instrument isn't "worth" what you payed for it (unless you were buying it specifically as a collectors piece instead of a musical instrument...in which case you were a bit foolish to not get any documentation). If you -like- the instrument and are happy with it otherwise, then it's worth what you paid...and only you can decide that. Personally, I'm not a collector...I'm a musician. When I buy a guitar (or other piece of equipment) I don't do it because I think it's valuable (or may be valuable in the future), I buy a given guitar because I LIKE that guitar...I like the way it feels, the way it sounds and because I believe that it's something that's going to inspire me to play.

Unless you do get some specific proof that this is a genuine piece and has some sort of collectors value (and I mean something other than the subjective comments of strangers from an internet forum), I wouldn't drive myself nuts over it. Play it, enjoy it and be happy you have a nice instrument .

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

Fair enough... I did suspect as much, although it does sound a lot like a Strat.

I realised the ESP bridge wasn't right, but didn't the really old Fenders have Grovers?

On the headstock, there's no breaks in the laquer at all, so if "someone" has just stuck the logo on, I can't see how they could've dont it. The finish is machine-perfect.