I watch ebay closely for deals on strats. Some of the Custom Shop Strats can be had for around $2000. Such as this one.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

From this price they go on up to thousands of dollars. My question is Are the two thousand dollar ones alot worse in quality than the higher priced ones. The Masterbuilt ones seem to start at around $3000 and go up from there. Are they not all built by Masters of the craft, I mean it's the Fender Custom Shop right? So is there alot of difference in the Quality of just a regular Custom Shop strat as opposed to a "Masterbuilt? I really like the one in the link I posted above however if the Quality of the guitar isn't much better than my AVRI then I may just keep saving my Strat money until I have enough to buy a Masterbuilt.

_________________
"Damn Right I Got the Blues"

The Fender Custom Shop is essentially a smaller production line inside the Fender factory. They have their own staff, their own CNC machine, etc. They get the first choice of the wood that comes in to Fender, and their production output is of course much smaller than the production line. So these lower priced guitars are essentially small production made by the Custom Shop team, and include the CS Artist Signatures, the Time Machine (reissue) guitars, and any other "build for stock" guitars (including the guitar models done for specific dealers). The team will also build custom orders unless you specify that you want a certain Master Builder to build your guitar.

They currently have 8 Master Builders whom you can commission to build your guitar. They only build to fill orders, but some dealers will commission them for store stock (or for example a dealer could comission a run of say 10 EC Strats from one builder). There are also limited runs that are made available to dealers (for example, back in 2004 the Master Builders each did runs of the CS '54 Strats), etc. Think of these as the "best of the best", or "I want an EC Strat from the guy who actually built the one Eric used in 2007", or "I want something unusual and I want one person to build it". The Master Builders will either do just about everything themselves on the guitar or closely supervise the things they don't do.

The ones you see on ebay for around $2K are those "team built" models; they typically sold for $2,200 to $2,500 "street price" and you can often find the more common models (like the '56 Strats) for under $2K. Also some of the other series guitars were more like $2K new; they would go for less used.

They are all good; it's just grades of "good". The CS does put out quite a few guitars per year so you will find good ones and ones that are just okay. Would they be better than your AVRI - you would have to play one and find out. For example only you can tell if you would prefer the fatter CS '56 Strat neck over an AV '57 Strat neck. Also, starting this year the CS Time Machine guitars have "altered" specs from vintage - they typically have 9.5" radius and larger frets. For past years it seems like several retailers would change the specs on the Time Machine guitars they got for store stock to the flatter radius and larger frets.

Thanks John C. Very helpful information. Greatly appreciated.

_________________
"Damn Right I Got the Blues"

I don,t think the pick guard on that guitar is right it should have a parchment pick guard.

Saw everything but a COA.