I am trying to ID this guitar. It is a Charvel San Dimas Guitar with a seems to be a Strat Body. The Body says 57 STR, Jan 22 1991, A. Murillo. The rear of the body has a tag that says Fender Original Body. The Pickups are Seymour Duncan. The Neck and Headstock is Charvel. The Rear Plate says Charvel, PO Box 245, San Dimas, CA 91773, U.S.A.

'tis a Parts-O-Caster, but I'm not really familiar with the history and dating of Jackson/Charvel guitars. I do know that at some point, they stopped making guitars with Strat shaped headstocks for obvious legal reasons prior to them being purchased by FMIC in 2002. I suspect that the guitar's body is a genuine Fender '57RI replacement body.

(Edited to add): The Jackson/Charvel guitar company was started by Grover Jackson and Wayne Charvel. Eventually, Wayne Charvel left the company. After doing some research, it appears that Charvel guitars production was moved from being hand-made in America (San Dimas, CA) to mass-production in Japan starting in 1986. Grover Jackson then sold Jackson/Charvel to a Japanese music conglomerate in 1989. An original MIA "San Dimas" Charvel would some collector value and a number of fake Charvels are out there.

Also; as a kid, I recall seeing guitars sold with the "Charvette" name at a local store. I think it was before they moved Charvel to Japan. Were these "Charvette's the precursors to MIJ Charvels?

Yep - parts guitar with a Fender replacement body and a Charvel neck and neck plate. The Charvel neck likely dates to sometime circa 1979-1982/83.

A bit more Charvel history - Wayne Charvel started the company in the late 60s/early 70s as a retail store and repair shop. Wayne was making some parts at his shop like brass neck plates, trem arms, etc. At some point Wayne took on some financial backing from a company called ASI that was also funding Schecter Guitars and a p.a. enclosure company. The funding company was pushing Charvel to expand their parts to be more similar to Schecter - maybe even have Charvel do the wood carving and Schecter do the metal parts and pickups. Wayne bought up some pin routers, but never really used them (the famous EVH body was cut by Wayne Charvel during a weekend wood-cutting session at Schecter Guitar Research - the template Wayne used was actually developed for him by a Schecter employee named Tom Anderson).

By about 1977 Grover Jackson joined Charvel; when Wayne couldn't pay him, he agreed to take a percentage of the company instead of salary. Wayne was in hock to ASI, so he sold the company to Grover Jackson at the end of 1978; Jackson was able to get a loan to pay off ASI and get away from that relationship. Grover was the one who actually started milling the bodies and necks in-house; the routers had never been used until after Wayne Charvel left.

A quick history of the company after Grover Jackson purchased it - they milled bodies and necks for DiMarzio to sell in 1979-1980; by 1980 they were selling enough Charvels they could end the DiMarzio contract. In late 1980 Randy Rhoads contracted for Grover to build him a neck-through somewhat V-shaped guitar - Grover didn't want to mess up the momentum Charvel hand in the marketplace so he put his Jackson name on Rhoads guitar with the angled headstock. By 1983, Fender cracked down on the Strat-style headstock and they started using the Jackson-style headstock on the Charvels.

To keep up with Kramer and others in the marketplace Grover had to expand, and he did the deal with a Japanese company that moved the Charvel production to Japan - and put the name on both bolt-on and neck-through models. Jackson put his name on the USA bolt-ons that were formerly known as "Charvels", so from 1986 on both USA bolt-ons and neck-throughs were "Jacksons". After Grover was gone from the company, they kind of "retired" the Charvel name and started putting the Jackson name on imports as well as USA models.

Jackson/Charvel has been sold several times; the owners prior to Fender revived the Charvel name briefly (with a non-angled headstock but not the real Strat shape), but it was retired again. Then Fender reivived the name after they bought the company in 2002.

93greenstrat - the "Charvettes" were their first MIK line in the 90s; they came after the Charvels had moved to MIJ (and maybe even after the Charvel name was retired in the 90s).

What you have there is a combo of a "Pre-Pro" era Charvel neck, Neckplate/gasket, brass bridge, and jackplate, combined with an official Fender Replacement Body. This era of Charvel is one of the best of all the pre-Fender buyout years. This was from '80-late '83 ish, when Charvel was making the Strat headstock guitars many of us know and love.

The body was part of a line of replacement parts that Fender offered during the 80s/early 90s. There were identified by the medallion that you see in the pictures.

Can't tell if the pickguard is original or the pickups.

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Thanks to 93greenstrat, John C & chanman246 for weighing in on my combination Chavel Neck/Start Body Guitar. You have given me a better understanding of what I have. Knowing exactly what you have with a vintage guitar is often priceless info.

DJ Poppysoul

Any time, man! I'm a big Charvel guy, always nice to see the name round the forum in some shape or form.

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