OK so I was looking through a pawn shop and I found an American made Fender strat for £150 so I couldn't pass up the chance too buy it, I got it home and had a look at the serial number it said SZ310516 so I looked it up on the internet it said it's from 2003 and part of a signature series.

Can anyone tell me what signature guitar this is?

It's a Sunburst, it has SSS white pickups, five-way white pickup switch
the Bridge and the tremolo are both a goldish colour and the tip of the tremolo is black,

the knobs are white, the scratch plate is white, it has a rosewood fretboard, white dot inlays,
standard chrome tuners, standard strat headstock, the body wood is ash and the jack is a gold colour.

Thanks.

Welcome.

Well, I guess I'll be the one to say it this time: Please post clear, detailed pictures.

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You dig?

Makes sense.

If it's a real Fender USA for £150. You got a pretty good deal!

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Guitars:
Fender USA Standard '89
Godin G4000 '95
LTD Viper 400 '01
Ibanez RG550 LTD '97

Amps: Koch Studiotone Tube amp / Hughes & Kettner ATS MKII
Pedals: Ibanez WH10, Ibanez CP10, Boss CH-1, Boss MT-2, Aria FL10

The guitar doesn't have a signature on the headstock?

So far I haven't heard anything out of the ordinary.

I looked through the 2004 catalog (many Fender guitars with SZ3XXXXXX and Z3XXXXXX were built in '04) and I found two Strat with gold bridges. One is a CS Robert Cray model and the other is the Artist series SRV. It does sound like the guitar has had some replacement parts so your discription doesn't give me enough information.

I don't think it's the Robert Cray Strat because you never said anything about it being a hard tail.

If it is an SRV then the gold bridge would be left handed.

Hi Noble7147: just to speculate pointlessly till the pix come along... A mixture of gold and chrome metal parts and black and white plastic ones? I don't know of any sig or non-sig Strat that came like that. I stand to be corrected, but I suspect that is the signature model of the previous owner: in other words, a parts-o-caster.

Cheers - C

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I agree that it seems to be a mix and match guitar. One of two things has happened. 1. It's a signature model some has modified or 2. a homemade guitar some has faked a S/N. I'm thinking it's probibly #1.

I don't know if these pictures are any good so please let me know if there bad.

Sorry buddy, but thats a fake. Looks like a Squier someone put a Fender Decal on. Everything is absolutely wrong with that one. Usually when something looks too good of a deal to be true...

Indeed, that's a phoney decal on the headstock and the guitar itself is definitely an Asian knockoff.

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You dig?

Oh...

Thanks anyway.

Hi Noble7147: I just saw your Private Message - but your photos here show you got there without me. That's the good news.

The bad news is that this guitar is not merely a parts-o-caster, it is a fully fledged fake-o-caster. What you have here is a Chinese built Squier Strat which has had a fake logo decal added to the headstock, with a fake serial number.

The reasons I can tell that beyond doubt. The trussrod entry hole has no walnut (MIA) or black plastic (MIM and MIK) lining to it. That alone is only found on Squiers. Also, the "diamond back" tuner casings are typical of Squiers, especially those of the late 1990s. The absence of a skunk stripe is not confined to those models but does add to the identification. Finally, the lettering of the serial number in particular is not accurate to the way it would look on a real Fender.

From photos I can't tell if the body came with the neck or not, but I see no reason to doubt it.

Back to good news: you didn't pay significantly more than the guitar would be worth if its true ID was known. So you didn't get badly stung; it just isn't what you thought it was.

And another nice detail is that although this is a budget starter guitar the body is made from three pieces of what looks like ash: it is not a five or seven piece slab with veneers on the front and back, as it would be if it were a MIM of that period. So that is good.

How does it play? That's the important bit.

Cheers - C

EDIT: oops, others seem to have got there while I was typing...

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