Hi!
I want to buy a Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster, found a seller, but I've only saw a photos, really don't want to buy a fake, what is the difference between the original from a fake?
it's photo of guitar, is the original?
Thanks

Looks like a real circa 2001 American Deluxe Fat Strat to me. If I'm remembering correctly the trans red was an alder body, not an ash like the trans teal.

this is really interesting, in the internet I found very few pictures of RED deluxe and on the site does not indicated anywhere on the red ... what does this mean?
John C you are means that the body is alder, not ash?

Run the serial number that should tell you everything about the guitar.

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A good website to use for images is tineye.com. Basically you take the image and run it through their search engine and it looks for copies on the web. A lot of times scammers take photos from other websites and try to pass it off as their own. Using this website you can see if the image shows up anywhere else on the web. I ran a search and found no results, which is a good thing but feel free to give it a try.

Fender updates their models from time to time and when they do they do not archive the specs of the earlier models anywhere that the public can look them up. The American Deluxe series is currently in it's 3rd version; the original version was made from 1998 through the end of 2003; the second version ran from 2004 through the end of 2009, and the third version was released in 2010.

Okay - based on the serial number starting with a "DZ1" the Strat you're looking at is a 2001 model - "D" for "American Deluxe", "Z" for decade of the "zeros" (i.e. the 2000s), and the "1" makes the year "2001" (I said "circa 2001" because Fender uses up the serial number decals so it could have been built in early 2002; the only way to know for sure is to contact Fender or take the guitar apart to check the date stamps).

Version 1 of the American Deluxe had different specs than the current version. The stacked single coils on this version were called "Vintage Noiseless", the humbucker is the Fender DH-1 pickup. There was no S-1 switching back then (that was added to the American Deluxe with the update done in 2004). Also the beveled neck plate wasn't added until sometime in 2002. The other specs look period correct - roller nut, Deluxe Trem, abalone dots, chrome decal, etc.

The version 1 American Deluxes originally came in 7 colors during their production run - I know for sure that the natural (clear), transparent teal, transparent purple, and transparent white blonde were used on bodies made of ash wood. The 3-color sunburst and black finishes were used on bodies made of alder wood. Now I am 95% sure 6th color, the transparent red, was also used on bodies made of alder but I could be mistaken. However, to my eyes the grain of the wood looks more like alder than ash but it could just be the photos. The transparent purple didn't last the entire run of the guitar; it was gone by 2001. The white blonde ones had a cool tortoise shell pickguard (and the American Deluxe Teles had tortoise shell binding as well).

Hope that helps.

JPD Is this correct method ? Chinese serial numbers do not carry any information?
John CThanks for the info

No problem; glad to help. I find it frustrating that you have to go by memory on the older versions of the guitars; it would be nice if there was a really solid on-line archive of the old specs, colors, etc.

Just to be sure I would email the serial number to Fender's consumer relations team; they can look up the guitar in their database and confirm it. Their email is:

consumerrelations@fender.com

Also I'm not sure about the new Chinese serial numbers - I believe they would be like the Japanese and Korean numbers in that the prefix letters would correspond to a range of years. It is only the USA and MIM production models that can be decoded in any way (and even some of the USA models like the American Vintage serial numbers really don't carry any data).

Today I took her for a couple of days to play, listen
so I can do now any picture, that need's
now I apart her and check the date stamps, that's what it says
http://dump.ru/file/5539435

date stamps says August 09 2001

Here is another thing that I want to say, it's strange but on the Tuning machines there is no letter F as for all pictures from the Internet
like this
http://cdn3.iofferphoto.com/img/item/19 ... -c82b0.jpg

and there is no S-1
and there is no beveled heel like this http://www.forsyths.co.uk/Instrument%20 ... ackbig.jpg

That's absolutely normal for an American Deluxe guitar or bass made before 2002 because beveled neck heels didn't came into surface until the first half of that year! Same thing for the 4+1 tuners and 18V power supply on the basses...

The S1 switch was already present on the American Series line as of 2003. The feature was introduced on the higher-end American Deluxe Series with the advent of the Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups the following year.

chromeface Thanks a lot!

The stacked humbuckers on this guitar are the same dual-coil ceramic units used on the Jeff Beck signature model. Dual-coil Ceramic Noiseless Strat pickups (aka "Hot Noiseless") had a hotter output to achieve a proper balance with the DH-1 (Atomic) humbucking bridge pickup.

yes, there is Noisless pickups on my Fender
judging by the pictures from the Internet some other deluxe's has other's pickups

Noiseless pickups with ceramic magnets. Ceramic magnets deliver a hotter output.

Really? I thought these pickups were just an overwound version of the alnico Vintage Noiseless that was also used in the bridge position of the SSS version of the American Deluxe. I had a 1998; the bridge pickup was supposed to be slightly hotter than the neck and middle pickups and I thought that Fender was just using the SSS model's bridge pickup as the neck and middle on the HSS to balance things out. I can tell you I remember the bridge pickup being just a bit hotter, not overpoweringly hotter like the Hot Noiseless on the Beck would have been.

To the OP - the "F" on the tuners only dates back 4-5 years; the early ones had the plain knobs.