Never to late to add that sort of interesting lore.

Yeah, I really think the guitar is great for the money I paid (even if it'll never be a collector's item), and aside some points people mention (such as fret ends being rough and even catching on shirt sleves and whatnot), I found that this guitar was MUCH closer to the American models than any of the MIMs I played in the shop where I bought it. Especially the materials, and the Mat finish on the neck is fantastic.

I saw one for sale used a couple months back, and I'll admit that it was not very impressive, as neither neck nor fretboard were birdseye. Looked quite plain, in fact.

In any case, I see that you, too have come across exactly the same sort of mentality as I am dealing with this friend. I'll be curious to see what he eventually says when I see him next, after having sent him PDFs from the official Fender catalogue. I suspect he'll just back out by saying, "yes, but it's not real because it's not made in the USA"... Whatever.

To give you an idea of how far he will go to prove HIS point, he just bought a 1975 strat all natural which is the "real" one of which mine is a "copy". I'll be curious to see how it plays, as I've only seen photos.

ALso : I'm curious about the history of the guitar, though.

Any clue as to the story behind the non-standard logo? There must have been some licensing/trademark dispute or something.

What's the controversy about the Fender-Cort factory?

Also, I read somewhere that the materials come from the States and that the guitars were "assembled" in korea. By assembled, do they just mean mounting and finishing ? I would assume that the raw materials were just cut down to basic block sizes and all the real machining, grinding and cutting happened in Korea.

Yak yak yak. Amazing how long we can go on about our guitars!

Well good luck to your friend buying a '75 Strat - by '75 we were getting into a pretty much "hit or miss" period with Fender as their owners at the time (CBS) began pushing a lot of product through. Hopefully for his sake (even if he has some bad ideas about Fenders made elsewhere) he snagged a good one.



Considering Fender was having these made I suspect they just wanted to put a unique logo on these to make them different. However, when people began complaining that others thought the guitars were fakes/counterfiets/etc. it appears that Fender put a more normal logo on them. It's still interesting that they never put the model name on the Lite Ash headstocks. It's also possible that these weren't supposed to run for as long as they did - it could be that they were originally going to be a one-year model but they were successful enough to get a longer production life.



I never heard of a controversy between Fender and Cort over these - Fender ending their relationship with Cort was likely a business decision by Fender to find a different supplier (lower cost, quicker turn around, or whatever reason they had).



On these I'm pretty sure the only USA components are the pickups - although I suppose it's possible Fender could have shipped pre-wired pickguards over to Korea instead of just having Duncan drop-ship the pickups. The trem is pretty similar to a USA 2-post but they are just similar designs, not the same unit.

Well, I'll be curious to check out his '75. No point telling him about any reputed doubts over that period, as nothing will sway him from hearing a better and more "real" sound. But that's ok... There's things ya have to overlook sometimes in friendship.

By the way, I switched to a white pearloid pickguard (w/ white knobs & pickkup covers), and I think it looks great.

TOM

Sounds about right. And to add to that, the Lite Ash guitars along with a couple of other models (a koa topped one, if memory serves) were designated "Special Edition" in the catalog at the time. So perhaps Fender just felt they'd like to give "special" guitars a special logo.



The controversial aspect was that in the last couple of years it emerged the workers in the Cort plant were being treated fairly badly, even by the standards of a middle economy country. They had a series of disputes about it, there was a campaign on the internet and some threads on the subject in the Lounge here on the Forum. As it has turned out, a chunk of their production has recently been outsourced to China, which is rather ironic.

However, I've a feeling by that time Fender were already ending their contracts with Cort: I too doubt it was over the publicity around the industrial relations. Fender have spent the past few years moving nearly all their mid-catalog manufacturing to the Mexican plant, which they own in its entirety and which therefore probably makes its output more profitable for them.



I don't have certain knowledge on this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if the timber was indeed shipped over to the Far East to be worked. Both maple and ash grow in many parts of the world (both of them right here in my garden in the UK, for instance, and I've harvested and used both for guitar building); but as far as industrial sized extraction is concerned North America is where most production of those species takes place, especially Canada, far as maple goes. Economies of scale. And in particular, you can't tell if a tree will yield birdseye maple till you cut it and it is quite rare proportionately, so it is sort of a by-product of large scale felling and milling.

So it seems perfectly believable either or both of those woods were being shipped out raw for working. Though the only cost advantage in doing so would be then to have all the gluing and machining done in the East at their labour rates. And if memory serves weren't the pickups described as "Duncan designed" rather than actual Seymour Duncan ones? So we shouldn't go kidding ourselves we have a "sort of" American guitar with a bit of Korean work put into it. These instruments were made start to finish in Korea, and none the worse for it.

BTW, sorry to hear your fret ends are rough. My Lite Ash Tele is perfect even to that detail - I simply can't fault the workmanship. I too like that satin neck finish!

Cheers - C

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Regarding the pickups they were described as Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II pickups not the Duncan designed type.

Ah-ha, I stand corrected. Thanks, twotone57.

Cheers - C

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Oh, the frets are just fine on mine, but I did read in the forum concerning the Special Edition MIK strat some accounts where people complained about this. One person even saying they'd almost cut themselves ( ! ) on them. Glad to say mine are just fine, and the only complaint I could have with the guitar is that logo and all the silly confusion it's caused.

But at least it got me on this forum and allowed me to read some fascinating exchanges !

Well, I got to check out my friend's '75 strat yesterday.

I'm not currently use to playing different strats, and I was still surpized to see how beefy the neck was as compared with my Light Ash neck (which I've seen described here as a V-neck).

At first it just didn't feel right, and it really took me some time to get use to it, but I kept at it because the sound is abosolutely amazing. Fat lows that I just don't have (havn't found) mine, and he's got lighter strings ! And of course, as it sounded so good, I played on....

So what the f- is in there ? The pickups are a bit closer to the strings than minen but I know pickups vary. If I move mine up, they'll probably just get hotter.

The varnish on his neck is an absolute mess, and it looks as if somebody tried to varnish over the body... I see no collector's value in trashed varnish, especially if you can feel it so much on the next, and I would get it entirely re-done, but he's in no rush. Cost him enough as it.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I am about to go trade some recording equipment for a fender lite ash and i was worried sick that it was a fake. It has the original logo (2004 i believe) and the only ones i could find with that style were on ebay, but who is to say those arent fakes. So now i can rest assured that i am getting a genuine strat (even if it doesnt say strat on it haha) and i will have somewhere to point skeptical buyers when i am trying to sell it. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to this thread. you just made my stress disappear. I might have to keep the guitar after this

Hey, you can download this catalogue and print out the key pages or at least show the link.

I think this is the right link

Link, full catalogues and images available at
http://www.fender.com/fr-FR/support/library/

Page 85.

Or let me know and I'll e-mail you my full PDF file of the catalogue

Excuse me, that links to several catlogues. I found the Special Edition Light Ash is in the 2006 catalogue, page 85. There's a Strat and a Tele, and you can clearly see the problem-causing logo.

http://www.fender.com/fr-FR/support/library/

That would be this catloge http://support.fender.com/catalogs/us/Frontline_2006.pdf

Art

Cheers - C

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