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  • #1

    Fender Strat question

    I was wonderring if anyone with Fender smarts could help me out here. My friend is checking out a Strat with s/n E336044.



    The owner said he got it as a gift back in 1986 and he believes it is a 1986 model. It looks a little strange to me. The neck is straight and true, and it plays and sounds good. What throws me is the input jack. it's not the signature strat angled input but a straight in jack on the pickguard.....can anyone here help????
    Transitioning from Retired Musician from cover bands to a Full time vocalist/frontman/guitarist in an original and covers band....it's been a while and this should get NASTY!

    Check out the new band at - https://www.facebook.com/PerfectStormMetal/?fref=nf
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  • #2
    Re: Fender Strat question

    That's a legit "Standard Strat". CBS made some cost-cutting changes and dropped the second tone control and jack plate in the early '80s. I think they started around '83 and were done with these mutations by '85.
    I feel my soul go cold... only the dead are smiling.

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    • #3
      Re: Fender Strat question

      Yup. However, few were made in '85 as there was little production that year. There was very brief time in very early '85 where CBS was making their usual stuff and then late in the year when the new FMIC was began production in Corona building only reissues on a very small scale (I hear around 6 a day).

      These two knob guitars are most appreciated in the Bowling Ball finishes.

      In the 90's we would get these in and they were a very hard sell. At one point we had 6 or so hanging around that we couldn't move at even $300. The common complaint was the lack of jack cups. So, we routed the bodies for jackcups and added the second tone and marked them up to $350. They sold very quick. After that any time one came in we did the jack cup mod. I bet we did a dozen of them.

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      • #4
        Re: Fender Strat question

        The E3 at the beginning of the serial number means '83. E for eighty, then the last digit of the year as the first digit on the serial number. Since, like Jacksons, they didn't exactly throw out their neckplates on midnight New Years Eve, or hesitate to open the box of new serial numbers before New Years, this is not an exact dating method, but close.

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        • #5
          Re: Fender Strat question

          Ace you beat me to it, that would appear to me to be an 83 model. I would buy it if I were your friend and the price is right.

          I would also route it for the cats eye input jack, that in the pickguard looks ghey!

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          • #6
            Re: Fender Strat question

            [ QUOTE ]
            The E3 at the beginning of the serial number means '83. E for eighty, then the last digit of the year as the first digit on the serial number. Since, like Jacksons, they didn't exactly throw out their neckplates on midnight New Years Eve, or hesitate to open the box of new serial numbers before New Years, this is not an exact dating method, but close.



            [/ QUOTE ] Didn't know Fender ever put serial numbers on the neck plate [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]. I thought they were all on the front of the headstock. Learn something new every day [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

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            • #7
              Re: Fender Strat question

              Serial numbers were decals, but the same is true. They didn't throw them away. Infact, they even ordered 'wrong' prefixes on occasion. I have a NOS S8 serial numbered Musicmaster decal manufacture date coded May 1981.

              Fender used serial numbers on neckplates until 1976. Then they went to the headstocks except on USA reissues which used serial numbered neckplates.

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              • #8
                Re: Fender Strat question

                [ QUOTE ]
                Ace you beat me to it, that would appear to me to be an 83 model. I would buy it if I were your friend and the price is right.

                I would also route it for the cats eye input jack, that in the pickguard looks ghey!

                [/ QUOTE ]

                <font color="aqua">agreed, I have a Yamaha that had the jack facing out so I did a little "routing" of my own back in my younger days [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

                It's the red one in the middle:



                </font>
                Dave ->

                "would someone answer that damn phone?!?!"

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                • #9
                  Re: Fender Strat question

                  It's not that bad if you have a right angled plug. I don't plan on routing my SG, but I think they are one of the exceptions.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Fender Strat question

                    <font color="aqua">That was the one thing I hated about the SG, I always loved the guitar itself but I always thought it would have been better down at the bottom on the side of the body like the les paul. I have an SG 200 that has the output jack on the "tele" style control plate and yes, the right angle plug makes it less "in the way". </font>
                    Dave ->

                    "would someone answer that damn phone?!?!"

                    Comment

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