i have a statocastor with a date,march 14,1985 serial # E-337361 H Gastelum. i was told they did not produce them at that time ! im confused.any info would much be appreciated !

Posting some photos would be helpful.

From what I've read (and from what some long-time Fender employees have posted) is that the current ownership group, FMIC, bought Fender in early February 1985. Among the assets they acquired was a "work in process" inventory of bodies, necks, pickups, etc. Since FMIC did not buy the old Fullerton, CA plant from Fender, they more or less worked through assembling these parts fairly quickly. I suppose it would be possible that they were still assembling parts in mid-March 1985 (although I thought the neck date was the date it was finished; maybe an undated neck was dated on the day the guitar was assembled).

Certainly once those parts were assembled and shipped there was no USA production until FMIC got their factory up and running in more like October 1985 - and even then they were only producing the USA reissues in very limited quantities for about the first year or so (the first American Standard production started in late 1986 to get ready for their January 1987 introduction).

hi , i've read that there were no USA fenders built in 85 the only ones available were MIJ fenders , and if you have a dig the fender catalogue for 85 shows only mij guitars and basses available HTH , on a side note i have an 85 mij 50's reissue the seriel number has an E prefix as well , cheers
Alan

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Alan - from what I've read that is a pretty common misconception because there just weren't that many USA Fenders made in 1985. I don't believe CBS did any advertising and was just fulfilling some orders, and by the time FMIC was up and running in October 1985 their production levels were tiny - plus they wouldn't ship out the guitars until they felt they were better than the MIJ reissues they had been importing.

Hey - I was under the misconception that Fender never was going to go back to USA production (but had a change of heart later) when in fact I had been misinterpreting (for over 25 years ) a Guitar Player article on the sale of Fender that was actually saying that at that time they weren't going to make the "basic" models in the USA, just the top-of-the-line models once they could secure a new production facility.

CBS didn't bring back the full production staff after the holidays in January 1985; they did assemble and ship some instruments that month before shutting down prior to the sale. FMIC bought the company but not the factory in early February 1985. I believe Rob Schawrtz mentioned that they did some assembly after the sale but it was just to complete the guitars that were "work in process" - i.e. no bodies or necks were milled, just assembly work - to me that means they couldn't have worked for more than a month or so.

FMIC did get their factory up and running in late 1985 - I always had thought it was more like January 1986, but there are a few forumites who have Corona-built reissues with October 1985 neck and body dates. It is also documented in "The Stratocaster Chronicles" that 1985 production was extremely low - maybe 5 guitars a day - in 1985 while they were getting back up to speed on production.

To put that 5 guitars a day in perspective compared to the numbers of MIJ Fenders produced in 1985 think about this - Tom Anderson, for example, completes about 3 guitars per day that they are open ending up with about 800 guitars per year. This means that Fender in late 1985 was operating at just slightly above Tom Anderson's production level, meaning that there weren't very many built from October-December 1985.

hi , john c thanks very muchly for that info mate , i stand corrected , and i'll have to get a hold of that book as well , sounds like a good read , cheers
Alan

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I wound up picking the book up with a store credit when I returned something - I think I took home an amp, didn't like it after all, and swapped it for another one and wound up with a $50 credit I used on the book. In hindsight that was about the best $50 I've spent in quite a while. It is a great narrative on the design and changes over the years, with lots of little nuggets of information. There are other books that are better for accurately dating a guitar and looking for fakes, but "The Stratocaster Chronicles" is a great history of the guitar.