New to the site, hoping to get a little help. I picked up a Fender Strat essentially on a whim last week at my local swap meet. After the help of some very knowledgeable users over at ultimate-guitar.com, we were able to identify the guitar as a "Boxer" series Contemporary Fender Stratocaster, model ST-756. The brochure found in the link below indicates that the ST-756 included a system III locking tremolo. However, in looking at the image on the brochure and other MIJ strats, I can't seem to locate a similar bridge. I was told that this particular bridge was referred to as a "Performer" , but that yielded no results in a google search. Do I need to remove the pick guard and look at the actual model number? Any help is appreciated!

http://brochures.yokochou.com/guitar-an ... en_04.html

Hi Oliade677,

Remove the neck and look in the pocket for the model number.

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Yeah, that's what I was instructed to do on the other site. Here is the image:



As mentioned, this is a ST-756 Fender Stratocaster. The brochure linked in the original post lists the ST-756 as having a System III locking tremolo. However, the images of similar models seem to have a different looking tremolo.

G'day Oliade677,

Is this brochure any help? - http://brochures.yokochou.com/guitar-an ... en_03.html



Goodonya ...Mark.

Yes, that's the brochure I linked to up above. The hardware on this guitar does not match the hardware of the guitar in the image.

That tremelo is either a mod, as that appears to be a "Free Flyte" Tremelo that Fender used on it's "Elite" series guitars back in the early 80's. Might try googling that and see what you get. Maybe the Japanese copied it for one of thier own models...although not sure why, as these tremelos were not widely accepted as working well at the time.

HTH

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

That is the neck heel. The neck pocket is the route on the body where the neck connects. I don't see an "ST" on the heel.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Actually it looks like the MIJ "System II" trem - which was really an MIJ version of the Elite's FreeFlyte Trem. Here's a shot from that "Fender Strats Made In Japan" site.



It should have been paired with the same type of lever-activated locking nut as the System III - I can't tell from the photo but it might have had that locking nut removed and a regular nut installed - when those things malfuntioned you couldn't get spare parts for them.

I think this would have been the Contemporary model 27-4100 here in the USA - not sure what the MIJ "Boxer" series number would be, but look for one with the "System II" trem. I vaguely remember seeing just one of the 27-4100s at the local store; most of the Contemporaries I ever saw were the other models that either had the System I or System III trems.

John C....why in the heck would the Japanese copy this tremelo? They almost single-handedly drove the Elites into the ground, these FreeFlytes were bad! And too bad as the Elites were actually some nice guitars.

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

That's a good question - and it's probably why I only ever saw one of that model Strat back in 1985-1986 while I saw lots of the models with System Is and and a reasonable amount of the models with System IIIs.

This might be a question for Rob if he checks in - it could be that FMIC had a stock of these from the CBS days and shipped them over for FujiGen to use up. I suppose the thought process was that they sold enough Elites during 1983-84 that someone must have actually liked the trem so why not use them up.

Here is a pic of the neck pocket. Unfortunately, still no ST:



Also, here is a link to a model 27-4100:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/130669050184?nm ... _cvip=true

It is identical to my own, excepting for the nut, which is obviously replaced on my guitar. Pretty neat to finally figure out exactly what I've got!

+1 (as always!) to John C

The "why" question is never an easy one...especially if you're not in the room when the meeting or discussion takes place. The "Freeflytes" were interesting and I've always taken those, as well as the System III's later, to be our continuing efforts to be innovative. There's some risk involved in doing so though as these trems bear witness. The Elites WERE pretty innovative i think. Even the cases were awesome (The Voyagair)!


But yes, John I would agree with your reasoning that there were probably trems left and after US production stopped in Mid 84, some were probably sent overseas at some point and became the System II's. There were a few different morphs of this bridge in my memory..at any rate, even Fuji's paper has the System 2 below listed as System 1 (its not) but then......its also listed as Stratoracaster lol. :O)


...never heard of "Boxer" series until today. But then the Japanese Market has a decent amount of stuff never sold in the U.S.
Cheers,
rob

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rob Schwarz
Director,Fender Customer Service
Proudly serving Fender Customers
for over 30 years

Rob - thanks as always for the glimpse inside Fender. That must have been quite an unusual time for the company and all the employees.

I'll be completely honest with you - I never did spend much time at all with either the Standards or Elites from 1983/84 as their neck shape just didn't work at all for me so I never really tried out the FreeFlyte that much in person. I always thought the Elite concept was very cool - as you say it was a serious attempt to advance the instruments - but I couldn't get past the wide/thin neck shape.

Neat, thanks for your input Rob. There does not appear to be much information (or a following for that matter) for the 27-4100. Would be interesting to see if more information surfaced, though I am plenty happy with what has been shared and discovered thus far.

Hi Oliande677: thanks for your interesting photos. One thing I noticed is that some of the string guides on the saddles appear to have bent upwards. Never seen that before but... yikes! I wonder if that is a known issue - might those guides actually snap off over time? That would be a serious problem: little chance of finding a spare part.

I do think it's a fascinating guitar, though. Be great to hear how you find its sound and playability?

Cheers - C

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