It makes me sick looking through ebay and seeing so many "guitar stores" that sell genuine used Fender necks right beside the neck-less body for double the cost...

"Genuine Jimmy Vaughan Strat artist series neck with original vintage tuners and string tree..." BUY IT NOW - $285 "I have everything you need to complete this in my store...."

Then two items down, what do you find but this:

"Jimmy Vaughan Genuine Fender Strat Body Complete Assembly" BUY IT NOW - $339 "If you are looking to build this style guitar, I have everything else you would need to assemble your dream guitar!"

So, I can put "my dream guitar" together in this one-stop shop for $625 bucks. GREAT, but the going rate for a complete used Jimmy Vaughan Strat is around $450 where I live... Now I'm all for makin a buck but in my mind there is just something inherently sleazy about chopping up good guitars to part them out and make obscene profits.

Am I just overreacting here because Fender guitars and making music are my passion MAYBE, but it STILL MAKES ME WANNA PUKE [/img]

None of the guitars you've mentioned will ever be bonafide collectors iitems so what they are doing really isn't any kind of destruction of some kind of future museum piece, 'one of a kind', etc. Besides, from a business point of view, selling a guitar piece by piece will bring in a lot more money than if it was sold intact. This is the same as how junk yards make their money - You buy only the item(s) you want and have the option to mix and match without having to buy the entire unit for the pieces of it you require.

I see your point though. In one respect, they are ripping apart perfectly good instruments.

Yet on the other hand, they too have to eat and as you can see, they are incredibly popular with what they are doing so more power to them. YMMV.

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You dig?

I'll take parts from a chop-shop that I assemble myself over a store-bought cookie-cutter guitar any day.

Puke your guts out, pine your heart away, who cares?

As long as there are parts, I'll be more than happy to put them together in the precise combination that I prefer.



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

Yes. Many of those eBay shops are selling new parts, NOT used. How much does a NEW JV Strat cost in your area? Keep in mind that Eric Clapton used parts from a few different guitars to come up with "Blackie". I am working on a Strat project right now, I bought some of the parts for it from eBay shops. I am glad that I didn't have to buy a whole guitar just to get the body that I wanted.

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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.

All them people looking for genuine replacement necks or whatever after theirs broke?

It happens.

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No no and no

New JV in my area costs about 7 or 8 hundred +/- a few buck depending on what kind of promotion is going on...

Anyway, I don't mind mind mixin parts around, I do it too. And I know a JV Strat is not (or ever will be) a museum piece. I also don't have a problem building partscasters or selling them... I guess I'm more put off by the fact that those shops just pick up guitars and take the necks off only to sell as two pieces. They're not building anything to suit their tastes or playing needs, they're just hackin them up to sell. Where's the love man? I'm a lover, not a fighter... Now where's that box of tissues?

Yep.

It's good to have the option of getting *just* what you need and nothing else.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

CAPITALISM.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

Absolutely. It pays the bills infinitely better than ROMANTICISM.

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You dig?

Plus, sometimes guitars get damaged for whatever reason and what better way to get an original replacement part, instead of going the warmoth or allparts way.

Nothing but love for the chop shops, here! That's where I picked up several of the parts for some of my favorite partscasters.
There's also a company that takes MIM Strats and hot-rods them with famous electronics packages, like the Clapton (Vintage Noiseless w/ mid-boost) and Gilmour (EMG's or Fender) pickup sets.

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Strat+Tweed=Tone

I can see a store parting out guitars to supply the need for quality replacement parts for specific models for instance if God forbid the neck of my Jimmie Vaughn got broken nothing else would do but a bona fide J.V. neck.It's when unscruplous dealers sell Custom Shop Certificates of Authenticity that gets me steamed but this subject has been dragged through the wringer already.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I agree with all of that - including the bit about the resale of Certs having been done to death on this Forum. My, we squeezed every drop of goodness out of that one - and then carried on. Didn't we?

Cheers - C

PS Of course, if a neck breaks that is one of the rare situations in which Fender actually will sell you a bona fide replacement, logo and all...