Well, I'm not too pleased with what I saw the other day. What prompted me to start this post is what I saw. There was one Am Vintage 57 2-tone. You could easily see a very thin hair line (from 3 feet away), BLACK, on one of the sides where the 2-tone three piece body got glued up. The pieces did not match. And what a price. Revolting doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. The thought of Fender loosing its commitment to quality and the start of a trend like the 70's when Fender forgot how to make quality instruments mortified me. So I wrote up this post to rally every one and feed this back to Fender as a wake up call.

I'll pay the price hike, but for a quality strat: 2-piece body down the middle with pieces that match with a nice grain. Not for what I saw. I was in the mood to buy, but I walked away. For what it's worth, the G&L bodies look pretty good. No, I didn't buy one, yet. I'm still too committed to Fender.

I do not know how hard it would be to make beautiful strats again, all I know is that's what I will buy at prices that compare well to what we have today. I hope this is a reasonable statement and expectation for a Strat and from Fender. I hope this post shakes up some people at Fender. I would be heartbreaking to go back to those 70's years.

ciao,
johnny.