Apology accepted. Welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forums mmenley. There are alot of great people here who are very helpful. Your apology is very commendable.

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"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives." Blazing Saddles...

Guys can we get past the argument and apologies now that everything is put right again, and try helping the guy out.

Basicaly your guitar is going to be one of two things.
An American made for export to japan, then sold as a japanese guitar.
A Japanese strat.

A friend of mine had quite a dilema trying to sell his lefthander with a I prefix serial no'. The guitar itself was quite the thing to look at, star inlays like the sambora and a nice slab of clearcoated wood for a body. He sold the guitar three times, only to have it returned as a fake. He got a letter authenticating the guitar from fender that acompanied the guitar with the last two sales. People simply didnt care about the letter. I can tell you I became quite accustomed to that guitar and in my opinion it was no fake.

In the end he got £150 for it. Around a 5th of what it was worth in my opinion. You need to find someone who also knows what it is to get a decent sale price for it.

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No no and no

That's an "I" version I've never heard of before. Did it have "Made in USA" stamped into the wood at the base of the neck?

Those are the "I serial numbers" that are thought to be MIA. There are plenty of MIJ "I serial number" guitars (with "ST-xx" stamps and Asian electronics, ie, all of the usual MIJ stuff).

The funny thing about all of this is that apparently, in the same time period, Fender brought Japanese parts into the USA and assembled them. The funny thing is that some of these stories have parts going both directions, across the Pacific Ocean, to be assembled. I don't know what is true ...

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

O.O It was MIA shipped to japan. I've never seen another one like it. Initialy I thought it was a sambora. The early 90's sambora's had a floyd and a bridge humbucker. This guitar didnt even have HSS routing.

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No no and no

Here are some pics that might help:



That's the only code on the pots. I've only ever read the seven or eight digit source codes. The toggle switch says MADE IN USA also.

Thanks for the pics.

That doesn't look American made to me.

It's so unlike the American made models from that time ('89-'90).


http://members.cox.net/jim.hintzen/StratCentral.html

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

The router hole on that body looks unusualy placed. Right next to the pickguard. The rest of the body routing looks ok though. I'd have to agree it doesnt look like a american strat body or neck. The made in usa stamp on the neck looks far too faded.

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No no and no

The stamp is an indention into the wood, and not faded at all (bad pic). Can any sense be made of the code on the pots?

i own a blue "strat" with gold plated hardware. Electro Gold plated 22 carat im told from research. A few years ago someone stole it and scratched off the serial number on the head. I recall the serial starting with an E but I am not 100% certain. I took the neck off and noticed a serial number G020155. Now im confused wondering what the real serial number is and the year of the guitar. It is blue body and blue head all gold hardware missing one knob with F emblem on it. ANy help would help to determine the date and finding a knob.

I allso own "I" serie strat. "Made in USA" stamp at heel of neck.(there are allso "I"serie on Made in Japan strats,but these I am not talking about them since I've never saw one) These "I" serie strats are LIMITED edition strats made for export market as Fender support says on "odd serial numbers". You can bump on some of these "I"strats on net and you can see these are mostly customized,quality builded guitars.
Neck finish is nitro,just like US strats,but neck with vintage '60s specifications+flamed onepiece neck with rounded rosewood slab fingerboard(awsome grip!) is something you cannot find on standard series US or Japan made.onlu customs.A body routh allso called "bathtub",for any combination of pickup types, makes this strat VERY resonant,looks and sounds absolutely great!!! Hardware looks great too,6 screw bridge with stainless monoblock stringsaddles,one screw tuners that eaven with heavy tremolo abuse keeps in tune. 500k pots(?),ceramic pickups with 2 magnets on each (I only seymorized bridge pickup on mine:)
Could these unussual "I" strats be prototypes from closing Corona factory in those years and sold worlwide on market research,making plans for new Fender plant in Ensenada... These are hard to find in US...perhaps they stamped these US made necks to make them legal,then sent to Japan for assambley with Japanese electronic and sold them on "export" markets,Europe,Asia...as legal made in USA strats.
Mine is bought in europe where sometimes can be found.Acctualy I dont care where its made,it looks and sounds realy awsome and builtquality and finish is on customshop level. I've stoped dreamming about expensive perfect custom shop strat with vintage spec 7.25"radius flammed finished rounded rosewood slabboard neck, because I've got one of these allmost 10 years now,with SN: I015299, plays great,have no need for anything else. Odd thing is Kurt Cobain allso had "I"strat,one of his favorites while recordin Nevermind album Forget about prices and where is made,...does it feels&sounds good to you? Forget about amps,pickaps,stringaction etc...all that can be tuned,replaced...the wood matters...
...one thing is for sure: this strat goes with me in grave, I would never sold this fine stratocaster

Not cool.....most all of us on here try to treat each other with respect. At first I thought, ummm he know the other person by first name "Dick" and then I read on to just be offended. I never took the preceeding post to be sarcastic at all. The person just made a simple mistake. "I" Serial numbers are pretty rare.... Please don't mess up this forum with these kinds of attitudes....

Glad to see you said he was out of line. Thanks for apologising. Welcome to the forum!

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

It appears that the URLs are broken. Photobucket shows that nasty error message "this image or video has been moved or deleted".

Can you repost the pictures?

It looks like the OP was from about 6 months ago but had his question answered.

Someone bounced it up with a question about his "The Strat" model having a serial number sticker in the neck pocket starting with a "G" instead of an "E". There should be some info on "The Strat" on stratcollector.com; unfortunately that site is blocked to me here and it isn't coming up on my phone (lousy connection today; not getting 3G speed).

why don't you save yourself some frustration and send an e-mail with picture to Fender. They have been very helpful to me....

Just a thought......................................................................