I just bought a Strat from Guitar Center this past weekend and nobody at the store was familiar with guitar. It is listed on the GC website as a Fender American Strat Select HSS in Crimson Red Transparent. It has a mahogany body with black pickguard and black headstock. Guitar Center did not have the original case or tags that came from Fender, but they threw in a nice hard case with all the paperwork for a Strat Deluxe.
So, my problem is; the guitar is not listed anywhere on the Fender.com site. I looked at the Product Dating page and confirmed that the guitar was made in 2011, according to the serial number, but no mention anywhere of a Strat with a mahogany body. I also found another post of one identical to mine on eBay that is reported to be made in 2008. So, it may be that the mahogany body was made from 2008 (or earlier) to 2011 and is no longer being produced. That would explain why the guitar is no longer on the Fender.com site.
There is no indication or special medallions on the guitar indicating a “Select”, so it may be just a Strat Standard or Deluxe with HSS (it does have the humbucker) with an optional mahogany body. But, I’d really like to get a confirmation.
I have emailed Fender Support to see if they can offer an explanation, but thought I’d also ask here on the forum. Anybody familiar with this guitar, anybody know the dates of manufacture with the mahogany body?

Thanks, Mike

Is this the same as you guitar

http://www.music123.com/guitars/fender- ... ric-guitar

If so there is some info is in the description

_________________
ukraider
"money cant buy you love but it can buy guitars!!!!!!"

Yes Sir, ukraider, That's my baby! Thanks for the link, the write-up is exactly the same as the one the Guitar Center website, verbatim. And it looks like I got a better deal than music123 is offering, by about $300!

So, music123 call it an "American Select", then refer to it as a "special run". I'm just curious to know a little bit about Fender's objective with this one. It's not on the Fender website anywhere that I could find. I'm feeling more comfortable now that it does not appear to be a GC exclusive.

Thanks for responding.

Mike

Mike - please see my other post on this. The photos of the guitar in the music123.com link show a guitar with a 2006 serial number. I'm pretty sure that all later runs of this mahogany body Strat have been GC/MF exlusives (nothing wrong with that).

They had been called "American Select" going back to that 2005/2006 initial run; Fender has just chosen to use the name "Select" for their new line of maple topped instruments. Your guitar is not part of the new series which is just called "Fender Select"; I'm not even sure that the "American Select" name used for the mahogany bodied HSS Strats came from Fender - it might have come from the dealers themselves to differentiate them from the American Series/American Standards.