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Post subject: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:18 am
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As I tend to do, I do things on impulse. This weekend, I bought a 2015 Fender Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina - BGB (Blackguard Blonde) while shopping for a new stratocaster. Felt good in my hands and played great. Sounded good with a low watt Marshall, so-so with a Dark Terror, and wonderful through my Fender Twin. I like it!!

Anybody have any experience with this guitar? Now that I got it home and did a little research, am I right to understand that this guitar is #9 of the "10 for 15" Fender Vintage run for 2015? I think there was only 500 of this guitar made?

And, if it is a "vintage" guitar (it is one of the "10 for 15" models) shouldn't it have come with a COA and a lot of vintage case-candy? Is it a collectable? The serial number starts "V15...".

How "good" is this guitar? I don't know my Telecaster history very well.

Thanks...


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:21 am
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To be clear, I bought a guitar that I liked, felt good in my hands, sounded great, and seemed to be made very well. I don't really care about anything else. But now that I have it home, the "vintage" part of this guitar has me intrigued.

D.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 8:47 am
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That sounds right - I was thinking it was the 8th in "10 for 15" series but it could have been the 9th. Some of these were runs of 250, others runs of 500.

Fender did not do any kind of COA for the "10 for 15" models, and since they were limited editions they did not come with the vintage tweed case like a regular AV '52 Tele; they came in the molded case. I'm looking at photos of one in its case on a dealer's website - it looks like the other accessories (strap, cable, ashtray, etc.) are the same as the AV '52. It doesn't appear that you got the reprinted '52 materials like you do with the AV series unless they are typically stuck in the plastic pouch with the cord and other accessories (I had an AV '64 Tele for a while; they put the reprints in a separate envelope and the modern materials in the plastic pouch with the cable and the other accessories).


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 2:45 pm
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Thanks John. You answered my next question as well -- about the case being non-era correct. I was certain I had received the wrong case for the guitar.

Guess what I don't understand is how a "vintage" guitar can't come with a COA. Isn't the whole idea of the COA to confirm that a vintage instrument is indeed era-correct in design and specification? Isn't that the point of "vintage" and instruments with serial numbers starting "V"?


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 5:22 pm
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dpe94 wrote:
Thanks John. You answered my next question as well -- about the case being non-era correct. I was certain I had received the wrong case for the guitar.

Guess what I don't understand is how a "vintage" guitar can't come with a COA. Isn't the whole idea of the COA to confirm that a vintage instrument is indeed era-correct in design and specification? Isn't that the point of "vintage" and instruments with serial numbers starting "V"?


COAs are usually just some kind of "pedigree" verifying manufacture, not necessarily that something is "vintage correct" - which of course the Korina AV '52 is not vintage correct because it has a korina body instead of an ash body.

Fender typically only does COAs for the Custom Shop instruments. They never really has used COAs with the American vintage models. They did use one for a while with the AVRI '52 Teles, but it was only from the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s (2006 was the last year, I think). I'm not sure why they started using them, but it was for no more than 10 years, and probably less. Fender never used a COA for any other AVRI model - just the '52 Tele.

They did use COAs with some of the early "thin skin" special model runs they did in the late 2000s, but not all of those "thin skin" runs had a COA.

Regarding the case - I should have mentioned that all of the "10 for '15" models used the Fender molded case.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 7:36 am
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John, I mentioned in my first post that I was shopping for a stratocaster, the 60TH Anniversary American Vintage AVRI 1954 before deciding on this guitar. The 1954 AVRI guitar came with a COA.

Guess that's what led me to believe all "vintage" guitars did. And my (limited) understanding was "vintage" was defined as guitars with serial numbers starting "V" and made to be period correct. I assumed they were also "custom shop" guitars.

It's all very confusing. I guess I purchased an American made "vintage limited edition" guitar that has really nothing in common with it's American made "vintage/original" counterpart (specification wise).


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 9:22 am
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dpe94 wrote:
John, I mentioned in my first post that I was shopping for a stratocaster, the 60TH Anniversary American Vintage AVRI 1954 before deciding on this guitar. The 1954 AVRI guitar came with a COA.

Guess that's what led me to believe all "vintage" guitars did. And my (limited) understanding was "vintage" was defined as guitars with serial numbers starting "V" and made to be period correct. I assumed they were also "custom shop" guitars.

It's all very confusing. I guess I purchased an American made "vintage limited edition" guitar that has really nothing in common with it's American made "vintage/original" counterpart (specification wise).


I'm sorry; I think I've confused you even more with my responses. Let me try to make this a bit clearer.

You are looking at guitars from the American Vintage series; they are meant to be accurate representations of a guitar from the specific year - for example, a Telecaster from 1952 or a Stratocaster from 1954. The goal is to use the same woods, the same neck shapes, pickups wound to sound like they did in the given year, hardware (bridges, tuners, capacitor specs, etc.) for the given year. They try to match the cases as well - tweed for the 1950s, light brown tolex for the late 50s-early 60s, black tolex for the mid-60s or later, and with the current series (which started in August 2012) they also have recreations of the materials that would have come with the guitar for that year. For the previous versions Fender even shipped them wired up like they would have been in the given year (for example, a 3-way switch in the Strats) with a kit to convert them to modern wiring, but the current series now comes with them wired like their modern counterparts with a kit to convert them to the original vintage wiring - I suspect that Fender's market research told them that the majority of players converted the guitars to modern wiring (I have owned 2 AVRI '62 Strats and an AVRI '52 Tele in the past, and in all cases I had them converted to modern wiring before I even brought them home from a local mom & pop dealer).

These are built on Fender's main production line, and they do have serial numbers that start with a "V", signifying that they are part of the American Vintage series and therefore are built to vintage specs.

Now let's talk about COAs for a moment - Fender typically doesn't provide a COA with American Vintage series models that are in "normal production" - meaning that they are produced every year and are not special editions or anything like that. The exception being the AVRI '52 Tele, which did have COA for 8-10 years ending circa 2006. During that time the AVRI '57 Strat, '62 Strat, '62 Custom Tele, '62 Jazzmaster, and '62 Jaguar models did not have COAs.

While there are not COAs for "normal" American Vintage models, the 2014 AV '54 Strat was a limited edition for the 60th Anniversary of the Stratocaster and was only produced for one year; Fender decided to produce a COA for that model. Fender is kind of haphazard about producing COAs for limited edition models made on the main production line - sometimes they choose to do one, sometimes they do not.

Fender chose to not produce COAs for last year's "10 for '15" models; since your AV '52 Korina Tele is part of that series it does not have a COA. Now it does have all of the specs of the AV '52 Tele (neck shape, pickups, bridge, etc.) except one - the body is Korina instead of ash. Which is what made it a "10 for '15" limited edition.

Finally the Custom Shop issue - Fender also makes some recreations in the Custom Shop. The Custom Shop versions these days now have modern radius and larger frets, so they are not exact recreations. Custom Shop guitars will always have a COA that identifies them as coming from the Custom Shop.

Again, sorry for the confusion earlier.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:45 am
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So what I can take from this conversation is that "vintage" is nothing more than a series of guitars, the same way "Standard" or "American Deluxe" are. And Vintage can mean either "era authentic" or "close enough, but with a few features thrown in".

Vintage guitars seem to be an "entry level" Custom Shop level of guitar.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 5:05 pm
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dpe94 wrote:
So what I can take from this conversation is that "vintage" is nothing more than a series of guitars, the same way "Standard" or "American Deluxe" are. And Vintage can mean either "era authentic" or "close enough, but with a few features thrown in".

Vintage guitars seem to be an "entry level" Custom Shop level of guitar.


Are you saying that the American Vintage are the "entry level" Custom Shop guitar? Actually the Custom Shop is no longer producing a production vintage-accurate model; since about 2010 the Custom Shop Time Machine series has gone to modern radius, frets and wiring. I suppose the CS would still build a totally vintage-accurate model, but they don't make that style any more unless you custom order it that way.

Also there have been 3 generations of the American Vintage series. Each time they have gotten it closer to a real vintage guitar. The first generation (1982-1997) was built to have a "vintage vibe" - they were at best 80% accurate to vintage guitars. They didn't have vintage accurate neck shapes; but the early ones had a very unique neck shape that some players (including David Gilmour) prefer. The second generation (1998- July 2012) was designed to actually try to be more accurate; they probably got it 93% there. The third generation (August 2012 - present) is even closer - probably 97% accurate. The differences are going to be the finish and the modern wiring. While there was a bit of a gap then you could say that the current American Vintage models do take the place of the vintage-style Custom Shop models.

So you really can't get anything closer to vintage accurate right now from Fender than the American Vintage models unless you have a custom built guitar from the Custom Shop.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 5:47 am
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John, do you make a distinction between an "American Vintage" guitar like the '52 Korina, and the American Vintage Reissue like the '54 60th Anniversary AVRI Strat? Do you consider these both Third Generation vintage series guitars?

Are Vintage guitars Custom Shop? (edit) Reason I ask is because sometimes I see "Custom Shop AVRI" and other times not. And unless I've misread your responses, the 10 for 15 Vintage guitars are not Custom Shop, but production guitars made for the Vintage series.

And John C, I do appreciate all the information you've provided.


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Post subject: Re: Limited Edition American Vintage '52 Telecaster Korina
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 5:25 pm
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dpe94 wrote:
John, do you make a distinction between an "American Vintage" guitar like the '52 Korina, and the American Vintage Reissue like the '54 60th Anniversary AVRI Strat? Do you consider these both Third Generation vintage series guitars?

Are Vintage guitars Custom Shop? (edit) Reason I ask is because sometimes I see "Custom Shop AVRI" and other times not. And unless I've misread your responses, the 10 for 15 Vintage guitars are not Custom Shop, but production guitars made for the Vintage series.

And John C, I do appreciate all the information you've provided.


I'm using Fender's own verbiage - their "official" name for the second series of these (the 1998-July 2012) was the "American Vintage Reissue ________", and you fill in the blank with '52 Telecaster, '62 Stratocaster, or whatever model you are talking about. The shorthand for that series is therefore "AVRI _____". Fender changed the name slightly in August 2012, the current series models are referred to as "American Vintage ______" - again, fill in the blank with whatever model you are talking about such as '52 Telecaster, '65 Stratocaster, '64 Telecaster, etc. The shorthand for the current series is "AV_____". But people will refer to either series as either "AVRI" or just "AV". You can tell the series models apart for every one except the '52 Tele - that is in both series; the other years being reissued are different for each series. That is why I try to be very specific - I use "AV '52 Tele" specifically to refer to the model that came out in August 2012, and I use "AVRI '52 Tele" to refer to the 1998-July 2012 model. But as I say most people don't bother to be specific and just call version an "AVRI".

Just for completeness the first series was called the "U.S. Vintage Reissue ______"; that name was used from 1982-1997. But most people also call the original series "AVRI" as well.

Technically the '54 Strat made in 2014 was the "AV '54 Strat"; not the "AVRI '54 Strat" - based on Fender's current name.

Again, all of these series were made in the regular factory, not in the Custom Shop.

Technically, a reissue-style guitar made in the Custom Shop would not be called an "AVRI"; they either didn't have a specific name or are called the "Time Machine series" by Fender. But people do incorrectly call the Custom Shop reissue-style models "AVRI" all the time. It is wrong, but you see it all the time.

Not all of the "10 for '15" models were based on American Vintage series guitars; most of them were based on American Standard series guitars. However, your Korina '52 Tele was based on the American Vintage '52 Tele. I don't believe Fender considers them to be part of the American Vintage series; I think they just consider them to be a limited edition model.


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