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Post subject: How old is my guitar?
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 12:44 pm
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Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2011 12:33 pm
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Can anyone tell me anything about this guitar? I have had it since I was a teenager. My parents bought it for me back in the day. I never learned how to play it and have been lugging it around from house to house since then. Any information would be great. The serial number is E016995. It is a Fender Lead II. Thanks


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Post subject: Re: How old is my guitar?
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:48 pm
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hotrodhenson wrote:
Can anyone tell me anything about this guitar? I have had it since I was a teenager. My parents bought it for me back in the day. I never learned how to play it and have been lugging it around from house to house since then. Any information would be great. The serial number is E016995. It is a Fender Lead II. Thanks


It’s a Fender Lead II from probably some time in 1980. I have a 1979 Lead II myself; it was my first good guitar and my folks got it for me in the fall of 1979; it does have an E0 (1980) serial number (mine is E0003XX – it’s buried in the closet or I would get the exact number for you). Here is a photo of mine:

Image

The Lead Series was made from the fall of 1979 through 1982; there were originally two Leads – the Lead I and the Lead II; a Lead III was added for the final year they were made, 1982. I know they were only available in wine red (like mine) and black in 1979 and 1980; I think this was also the case for 1981. Fender added other colors for 1982.

They had some common elements – a heavy ash body, a neck with both a small headstock and a 4-bolt attachment (the headstock similar to but not an exact copy of the pre-CBS Strat headstock). They had some common electronics – master volume, master tone, output jack on the pickguard, and two toggle switches. The I and II had a 3-way switch and a 2-way switch; the III had two 3-way switches.

Lead I – had a single large humbucker. The 3-way switch selects the front coil, both coils, or the rear coil of the pickup. The 2-way switch is a phase switch that operates when both coils were activated changing the coils from in-phase to out-of-phase.

Lead II – had 2 high-output X-1 single coil pickups. The 3-way is a standard pickup selector – neck pickup, both pickups, bridge pickup. The 2-way is a phase switch that operates when both pickups are selected.

Lead III – has 2 of the large-sized humbuckers like the Lead I. It had 2 3-way switches; one was the pickup selector (neck/both/bridge); the other 3-way selects the front coil/both coils/back coil of the humbuckers (operates both pickups simultaneously).

Fender discontinued them in 1982; they decided to focus on the newly expanded Bullet series as their “entry level” models for 1983-1984.


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