You would have thought that after almost 30 years (since the first vintage Strats were reissued) they would have straightened this particular issue out. On the first Fullerton reissues both the '57 and '62 Strat logo fonts were vintage-correct, although the '62 was missing the patent numbers. Then, apparently at some point after Fender regrouped in the mid '80s the decals changed and there were inconsistencies in every part of the logo, as shown here (courtesy of Vintage Guitars Info):



When the Vintage Reissue Stratocasters were completely redesigned in 1998 they also fixed the headstock decal so that the lettering was now more accurate and vintage-correct, but the '62 Reissue Strats still didn't have any patent numbers (making them look more like '60 Reissue Strats). At this time only a handful of year-specific Custom Shop Time Machine Strats had the appropriate "patent number" decal:

Spaghetti Logo Decal Variations:

No Patent Numbers: 1954 - 1960 (a very few 1961s also exist)
Two Patent Numbers: 1961 - 1962
Three Patent Numbers: 1962 - 1964 (a very few 1965s also exist)

Since 1998 the American Vintage '62 Strat has evolved to the point where it is more accurate and vintage-correct than it has ever been but the headstock decal is STILL not right! However, most of the Custom Shop "early '60s" Stratocaster replicas, especially the Masterbuilt models, do now have the correct decals to match the model year. Strangely, there are a bunch of Custom Shop "early '60s" Strats for sale online, including some Masterbuilt models, that DON'T have a "patent number" headstock decal like this Greg Fessler '62 Relic here:



Any idea why there would be so many inconsistencies?

Now here is a comparison of a recent Custom Shop '62 Strat Relic headstock (top) and a vintage '62 Strat headstock (below):



And just when you think they've got everything almost right...



Look at the font on this Custom Shop Relic "Custom Contour" decal (left). The word "ORIGINAL" seems to be taller and more rectangular than the font on the right decal, which is from a vintage '61 Strat. Even the mid period Reissues had a more accurate reproduction than that one! What happened? Did they redesign everything again - doh!

Probably more to do with copyright than anything else. I don't think FMC could have transfered it to CBS or CBS to FMIC, could they?

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No no and no

Close enough for government work.

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10-4 good buddy, over and out!

I know that this all sounds so nit-picky but Fender makes such a big point about getting all their vintage details correct and when you're paying $3000-$4000 for a so-called "vintage-correct" replica you should expect everything to BE vintage-correct. At one point in time the omission of the patent numbers may have due to a legal issue but obviously that's not the case anymore as you do see many early '60s Custom Shop relics with the correct patent headstock decal. My question is why we still see so many without them. Here is another perfect example (Custom Shop '62 Heavy Relic Stratocaster:




Now it's possible that the more recent models are indeed correct and that the ones I've been seeing are older examples. I realize that for the "generic" Custom Shop '60s Stratocaster they really couldn't use a patent number decal because it is supposed to be a composite model using the best features of all the early '60s Strats.

And when you have to pay copyright fee's, add another 10% to the price atleast.
If it means that much, just go buy a vintage instrument.

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No no and no

Under US law patents, copyrights and trademarks do transfer when the entity that owns them is sold. As long as they were owned by FMC and not by Leo Fender as an individual, they would have been part of the company assets purchased by CBS. Of course the patents owned by FMC would have expired during CBS's tenure as owner (back then US patents lasted 17 years).

Similarly, when CBS sold the company to FMIC, everything still in force would have transferred to FMIC. This is why G&L got into legal trouble when they started putting a small decal on their headstocks that read "by Leo Fender" - Leo didn't own the rights to put his own name on the headstock of a guitar because he had sold those rights to CBS (who in turn sold the rights to FMIC who issued the "cease and desist" letter to G&L). G&L moved the "Leo Fender" signature to the bodies of the guitars after that cease and desist letter went out (and of course G&L removed that decal on all guitars but their "Commemorative" model after Leo died in 1991).

I understand the issue with the headstock decals -- there's no reason why they can't be perfect in the "information era".

But I'm more anal about why FMIC can't seem to stamp "PATENT PENDING" on the goddamm saddles or equip the re-issues with real Kluson Deluxe tuners!!!!

HELLO? CORONA? ANYBODY HOME?



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

There are no "real" Kluson tuners any more; WD owns the name and licenses it to TonePros. For some reason I thought that Gotoh owned the name for a while, or maybe had the license for a while. I suppose Fender could get the TonePros with the "Kluson" name instead of the plain ones from Gotoh they currently use.

If you do enough digging, you will kfind inconsistencies in the 90's logos too- mainly with lettering "STRATOCASTER" and decal placement. I wouldn't mind betting that this has allways been an ongoing thing...

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ME mentioned something on this in the "Ask Mike" section. He said 1) that the patent was issued (so there could be some legal reason not to say pending now) and 2) some Custom Shop reissues to use the patent pending saddles.

So that's kind of contradictory ... but I think the real reasons for not making Patent Pending saddles is to make it a bit tougher for people wanting to sell fake vintage guitars.



That's the reason they don't try to make the logos/decals precise.
The higher priced Custom Shop models are a slightly different story.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.