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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:41 pm
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It's one of the posted pictures. DEC 01 1983.

But I can't see your serial number. Is the 3 next to the E?


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:45 pm
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I think is a mistake from Fender . Look here;

www.guitarnucleus.com/fenderserial.html


Serial Number on Peghead Decal.
U.S. made Fenders, starting in mid-1976 has the serial number on the peghead. Note the following number could be off as much as two years. Generally speaking, a "S" prefix equals the 1970's, "E" prefix equals the 1980's, and "N" prefix equals the 1990's. Note "E" and "N" prefix models are sometimes also Japanese-made (see below).
7600000 ("76" in bold) = 1976-1977
800000s = 1979-1981
1000000 to 8000000 = 1976-1981 (7 digits)
S100000's-S600000's = 1979-1982
S700000's to S770000's = 1977
S740000's to S800000's = 1978
S810000's to S870000's = 1979
S880000's to S980000's = 1980
S950000's to S990000's = 1981
E000000's to E100000's = 1979-1982
E200000's = 1982
E300000's to E310000's = 1983
E320000's to E390000's = 1984-1985
E400000's = 1984, 1985, 1987
E800000's = 1988-1989
E900000's = 1989-1990


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:13 pm
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On my neck it is write ;

NOV 1 1984

My serial number is exactly like your's, same letter , same number of digits ,same place.

I try to post some pictures tonight or tomorrow.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:33 pm
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You see the saddles , it is original of these years

Image

Image

Image


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 4:34 pm
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Matthew, your suspicions are entirely justified. It is well known fact that in the 80s Fender production was largely based out of JAPAN, even if it meant adding "Made in USA" on the headstock decal. What you have is in fact an MIJ Fender.

Relax, you have a great guitar. :)


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:22 pm
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Toronado wrote:
Matthew, your suspicions are entirely justified. It is well known fact that in the 80s Fender production was largely based out of JAPAN, even if it meant adding "Made in USA" on the headstock decal. What you have is in fact an MIJ Fender.

Relax, you have a great guitar. :)


This is a made in USA guitar not Japan. You did not read what I found ?


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:55 pm
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Toronado wrote:
Matthew, your suspicions are entirely justified. It is well known fact that in the 80s Fender production was largely based out of JAPAN, even if it meant adding "Made in USA" on the headstock decal. What you have is in fact an MIJ Fender.

Relax, you have a great guitar. :)


Well, that's not what I gather. Every MIJ unit has exxactly that printed on it. This one doesn't. There seems to be a lot of them on the market the same. I'm starting to thing someone did a large number of fakes.... all 1983.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:52 am
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Mathewweisberg,


I bough mine 6 years ago, from an "Fender guitar expert" who is a friend since and I do some research by myself and I never found there is a chance my guitar is not an american made.

We know that Fender serial number are not the only way to find the year. These numbers are not always reliable, we must also consider other characteristics.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:54 am
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Toronado wrote:
Matthew, your suspicions are entirely justified. It is well known fact that in the 80s Fender production was largely based out of JAPAN, even if it meant adding "Made in USA" on the headstock decal. What you have is in fact an MIJ Fender.

Relax, you have a great guitar. :)


Sorry Toronado but that's just not the case; there was significant USA production from 1980 through 1984, and again from 1987 until the end of the decade. Further, aside from some "oddball" models the majority of Fender Japan models imported to the USA were clearly marked "Made in Japan" on either the headstock or on the back of the neck heel.

From a post by Rob Schwarz of Fender over on The Gear Page we have a pretty good timeline of when CBS shut down production and when FMIC got it back up and running. According to Rob's post, CBS saw the writing on the wall about Fender and really started shutting down production in the summer of 1984. Rob was in assembly/QC at the time; he was laid off by CBS in August 1984. By that time they had already ceased producing bodies, necks and other components made in-house and were just assembling. The laid off people by seniority so some of the old-timers in assembly/QC stayed on well into September 1984, but they were laid off at that point.

Some of the assembly/QC people were brought back as temps in January 1985 to do some minor work on warehoused guitars prior to shipping - Rob recalled installing the Fender string lock onto Elite Strats for a couple of weeks when they were let go again . CBS then sold Fender to FMIC in early February; Rob and this crew were again brought back as temps where they inspected and set up new guitars imported from Japan - at that time FMIC was leasing the old Fullerton factory from CBS on a monthly basis. Starting about May 1985 they also began packing up materials and equipment FMIC purchased from CBS in preparation for the move to their new facility in Corona (and also to Brea, where the offices were until they moved to Scottsdale in the 1990s). They spent time in June 1985 unpacking, and they were rehired as full-time employees in July 1985. It took FMIC until October 1985 to actually begin shipping out guitars; they were only building the USA Reissues at that time, and production was tiny - per "The Stratocaster Chronicles" they were at about 7 instruments per day in 1985.

With production that low of course most of the Fenders available then were MIJ - but again these were clearly marked "Made in Japan" while of course the Reissues were unmarked as to country of origin (just like the current AV series).

FMIC began design work on the American Standards in 1986, showing prototypes at the Summer 1986 NAMM show. While these were officially introduced at the Winter 1987 NAMM show in January, they did start production of them in October/November 1986. Again, per “The Stratocaster Chronicles” FMIC went from producing 7 instruments per day in October 1985 to producing 150 instruments per day by mid-1987.

Where this all gets very “fuzzy” are instruments like the HM Strats, and certain “Standard Stratocaster” models and “Standard Telecaster” models from the late 1980s. These particular instruments have no country of origin on them but everything about the instruments indicates that they were Japanese – the cut of the headstock, neck heel, decal styles (including serial numbers), and some specific hardware like the Gotoh tuners and electronics (pots, switches, etc). The most likely theory on these particular instruments is that the bodies, necks, and some hardware were in fact made by Fender Japan but final assembly took place in Corona or Brea. These were just a limited few models; not the entire Fender lineup from that eara. Also these were the "Stnadard" models that wound up switching to Mexican production once FMIC opend up the Ensenada factory.

All this doesn’t impact matthewweisberg’s Tele at all – that one is 100% made in the USA and is the CBS-era Standard Telecaster that was only built from circa March 1983 until Fender shut down production in September 1984. Because sales were slow on these CBS never really moved to using the 1984 “E4xxxxx” serial numbers; virtually all of the CBS Standard Teles (and Standard Strats) have “E3xxxxx” numbers. This is also why those decals were left as part of the assets FMIC purchased in February 1985, and FMIC wound up using those decals on the American Standards that were actually produced between October 1986 and mid-1988.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:06 am
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Thanks John, that should teach me for not thinking critically about everything I come across on the internet.

That was very informative and a good read!


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:35 am
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Fascinating...

Ok. All of that said I have a couple of questions. John C. seems to be quite informed. I've seen a number of 22 and 21 fret versions claimed to be 83's. Not sure how to interpret that. Second are electronics. Instead of the trademark brown pickup control mine is white. In addition, and I may be incorrect here, is that the tone control should be a stacked two pot unit not a single unit. Am I misinformed? Lastly is the body with a blank neck cavity with a big black handwritten "X" in magic marker. The last question I have is if a finish test could help. I have a couple of sources that claim that in the late 70's Fender went to polyester finish versus polyurethane. Is this true? And again, thanks for all the info. Actually it's a very interesting project now... Just as an aside, doesd anyone now what the standard original pick switch knob was on an 83'? Mine is round and I've noticed many of them are rectangle.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:36 am
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A super read and very educational. Thanks again John.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:34 pm
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matthewweisberg wrote:
Fascinating...

Ok. All of that said I have a couple of questions. John C. seems to be quite informed. I've seen a number of 22 and 21 fret versions claimed to be 83's. Not sure how to interpret that. Second are electronics. Instead of the trademark brown pickup control mine is white. In addition, and I may be incorrect here, is that the tone control should be a stacked two pot unit not a single unit. Am I misinformed? Lastly is the body with a blank neck cavity with a big black handwritten "X" in magic marker. The last question I have is if a finish test could help. I have a couple of sources that claim that in the late 70's Fender went to polyester finish versus polyurethane. Is this true? And again, thanks for all the info. Actually it's a very interesting project now... Just as an aside, doesd anyone now what the standard original pick switch knob was on an 83'? Mine is round and I've noticed many of them are rectangle.


Matthew - the use of the E3xxxxx and E4xxxxx serial numbers is pretty well documented. Unfortunately for these guitars you first have to look at the features of the guitar to pin down the year range, then you have to take it apart to see the dates on the components.

Here is the short version of the story: CBS introduced "revised" lower-cost Standard Strats and Teles in early 1983. The Strats had a master tone control and moved the output jack to the pickguard (where the second tone control normally was on a Strat) and they used a top-loading tremolo called the "FreeFlyte". The Teles also had a top-loading 6-saddle bridge with those "L" shaped saddles. These 1983-1984 models both had a new neck shape that was wider and had a 12" radius (instead of the normal Fender 7.25" radius). These guitars would have had a standard tone control; that double tone control (or TBX) was only used on the Elite models during 1983/1984.

At any rate these proved to be fairly slow sellers; Fender never really did wind up switching from the 1983 "E3xxxxx" decals to the "E4xxxxx" decals in 1984 (although there are a few of them out there). Per my other post CBS shut down production in September 1984, then sold the company to the current owners (FMIC) in February 1985.

Flash forward to late 1986. FMIC has designed their new "American Standard" model Strats and Teles. These new models all have 22-fret necks with 9.5" radius, the Strats now have a 2-post tremolo, and the Teles return to stringing through the body using a 6-saddle bridge with cast saddles. These are the models that had the "double tone control" or TBX on them - FMIC used the TBX on both the American Standards (at least until 1999) and on the Strat Plus, Strat Plus Deluxe, Strat Ultra, and all versions of the Tele Plus (the "Plus" series was discontinued at the end of 1997 and replaced with the American Deluxe series)

However, they had stacks of headstock decals left over from the purchase from CBS that mostly contained "E4xxxxx" serial numbers (which should have been used in 1984) and they even had a few that contained "E3xxxxx" serial numbers (which should have been used up in 1983). FMIC decided to go ahead and use up these left-over decals. As it took them a while to ramp up production it really took them until May-June-July of 1988 to finally use up all the remaining "E4xxxxx" serial numbered decals and convert to a new stack of decals with serial numbers starting with "E8xxxxx". There aren't a lot of American Standards with "E3xxxxx" decals but there are a lot more "E3" American Standard Teles than there are "E3" American Standard Strats (I suppose the Strats did sell a bit better than the Teles during that 1983-1984 time frame).

Bottom line -you see a Strat or Tele with an "E3xxxxx" or "E4xxxxx" decal and 21 frets its going to be a 1983-1984 made at the end of the CBS era. If you see a Strat or Tele with an "E3xxxxx" or "E4xxxxx" decal and 22 frets it's an early American Standard really made between October 1986 and mid-1988.


Last edited by John C on Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:35 pm
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Toronado wrote:
Thanks John, that should teach me for not thinking critically about everything I come across on the internet.

That was very informative and a good read!


Thanks. Actually thank Fender's Director of Customer Service Rob Schawrz; he was kind enough to post that info in a thread about the Fullerton and early Corona AVs over on thegearpage.net.


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Post subject: Re: Strange Fake Telecaster... I think
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:40 pm
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Wow. Great info John. I guess the only question I have now is why the body has no stamping or ID other than the big magic marker "X". Most I've seen have markings or stampings. Maybe the neck is original and the body isn't?


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