OK I'm a Strat junkie and I stumbled across this on Ebay and I thought some of you might be interested in seeing this... I've never seen it until now... Has anyone seen or heard of it? Is it a forgotten custom shop experiment?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fender-Custom-Lucite-Stratocaster-USA-Amazing_W0QQitemZ120418696491QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1c09837d2b&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A10%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A2%7C294%3A50

Just like the one Jeff (Sunk) Baxter plays…If I remember correctly I have see Ritchie Blackmore tot one of these a time or two…Cool Posting Thanx…..

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I dont think its legitimate. The fender decal is wrong, whats the transition period? fender to cbs, cbs to fmic or squire to rip off decal attempt? The customshop decal is half missing despite no wear in that area. The other decal saying designed and backed by fender is a mystery too. Who's ever seen that on a customshop guitar before now.

Customshop are notorious for highly figured neck woods. Theres no coa either.

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No no and no

You raise some excellent points, nikininja. "Designed and Backed by Fender" is a dead giveaway for a Squier neck, as is that 70s headstock. It looks just like the neck and headstock on my Squier Standard Strat, right down to those tuners.

Now I don't dispute that this is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen, but I don't think it's a multi-thousand-dollar Custom Shop piece.

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

While I'm no expert, everything about this seems fraudulent.

(1) as was pointed out above, the Custom Shop decal is decaying despite no wear in the area.

(2) The slogan "designed and backed by X" is typically applied to budget guitars or pickups. The first example that comes to my mind concerns the relationship between pickups labeled "Seymour Duncan" and those noted as "Duncan Designed."

(3) Why would the "designed and backed by" decal be right beside the Custom Shop logo? It's redundant.

(4) The price is too low. Rare guitars -- even a generic custom shop guitar -- are worth way more than this. Fraudtsers will whip together an instrument and, rather than attempt to secure some exorbitant price, sell it for not much more than they paid to build it. If someone made a fake Strat for, say, $400 and sold it for $850, they would have more than doubled their money. The low price to me smacks of fraud; people these days know what instruments are worth--particularly when they're selling them.

Just my thoughts...

We posted at the same time and made the same points. Now I look redundant.

Vulkan thankyou.

Great minds or dummies never differ? Your call mate.

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No no and no

+1

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More fuel for the fire. Check out the headstock on my Squier Standard Strat:


And Vulkan, you're not redundant. That's called corroborating testimony!

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

yeah, definatley looks like a squier neck.

another thing that throws me, idk if it was mentioned, those saddles look like EL CHEAPO saddles.

custom shop vintage 6 point but no stamped saddles?

a little odd.

You're right. The saddles on my Squier are much nicer than those!

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

Good point. Please Vulkan dont ever feel redundant. Your opinions are valid and equally as important. Billy Graham once said 'I speak so everyone can understand me'. The great thing about multinational disscusion is that different people find different posters easier or harder to read. That may not be applicable in this case but i bet it is in a good few cases.

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Man you guys are good.... I didn't think it was legit... now I'm sure. Niki you've got an eye for these things. Vulkan you've got the price thing right that jumped out at me. The whole bridgeblock looked cheap and that humbucker is a dead giveaway... $29.99 at Musician's friend....

The final nail in the coffin is Russian's squire neck pictures. I just wonder where he might have gotten the Lucite body?

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I'm not slow... and I'm not fast... just sort of halffast...

First, thanks to all for the reassurance. I hadn't seen Niki's post, and I'm glad I didn't wind up sounding like a total boob.

Anyway, the one thing I've been thinking about is...



Seriously! Those things are not common. I know there were a few Strat knockoffs made during the late 80s using clear lucite bodies, but they are probably worth more now than the $799 this guy was charging. They're rare enough that I could only find one picture; apparently they're made by a company called "Clearsound"



Anyway, it's an interesting case. If you had a way of manufacturing lucite bodies -- which, it turns out, looks pretty good -- you'd have some business potential for sure. I bet people would pay a couple hundred bucks at least for a body like that.

And presumably being a plastic all the real work would be on making the mould. After that aside from material supply its cash all the way. Now i'm fairly good at knocking up fiberglass mould's but presumably the lucite would need to be hot to pour. If not the chemical setting process would generate a lot of heat. Once we figure that out were in business.

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No no and no