Dear Strat-lovers,

I just purchased my American vintage 62 reissue strat and the decal looks strange to me because it is actually a sticker.

All of my other strats have the fender logo underneath the finish so this got me a bit worried..

I found some threads on the web saying that pre-cbs strats and reissues have the logo over the finish.

Can somebody please confirm that?

All the best,
Thanos

Hi Catthan,

Sounds right to me! Did you buy it new from a dealer? If you bought it new from a dealer......

In this picture of my 62 AVRI you can see the "Contour" decal on top of the finish, the "Fender" decal is the same, you just can't see here.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Thanks a lot guys!!!
Yes, it s new (from a dealer) and I am really pleased with it.

One more thing (irrelevant to the topic), have you searched the PUs?

Some ads say they re CS 57/62, others say vintage 62 and others that both are the same. Any idea?
I like them a lot; I m just curious
Thanks again.

All the best

They are one and the same.

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

I'm still trying to get a definitive answer on this. I have a 1983 '62 Reissue with the 57/62 PUs but I haven't had a chance to compare the sound with a more recent model. I read an article that said these pickups were redesigned back in 1998 when they redesigned the guitar. They reverse engineered an original 1963 Strat pickup to come up with the new reissue Strat pickup, now called the American Vintage '62 pickup. The top edges of the pole pieces were bevelled to match the original '63 pickups but there was no mention of wire or windings or anything relating to sound so I don't know if the changes were merely cosmetic or not.

I have a '57AVRI that has the decal on top. I shot a few coats clear over the head stock. Looks the same, but no chance of chipping the decal.