Bitsocaster, any ideas ?

wrinkleygit

had this in a p/x against some recording gear in my dim & distant past, never bonded with the 7.5" radius neck, set it up for slide, but for most of its life it has lain unloved under the bed, have just resurrected it & stripped it out to take some pics of what I have, it has always been known as a bitsocaster but hopefully someone more into strats might have some opinions on its past life, from what I can make out there are at least 3 donors, the body looks to have been refinished, from the pic of the body & loose pickguard you can see the screw holes don't match & whilst the fretboard is early 60's style the pat no's on the headstock look to be later, possibly '68 style, at some point I will probably move this on for something more comfortable for my arthritic fingers but before then I would like to ascertain some idea of what this is as I wouldn't want to mislead any prospective buyer, hopefully there is a link to the dropbox folder containing all the pics I have, just noticed the pick guard does not look as green in the pics as in real life, let the debate commence, mike b.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/91ffc5rc0tmvhhw/AABxc0U3IGV7zAPGWrROkPXDa?dl=0

WezV

Tokai

edit:  well definite tokai neck stamps

wrinkleygit

One out of three then, can anyone say if Tokai used 5 digit ser numbers & stamped the neck pocket, which would only leave the mystery of the scratchplate screw holes not lining up, most of the wiring is cloth covered except to jack socket & mod to three way switch which gives neck,middle & neck/bridge as a humbucker, pickup bases appear to be some form of fibre board .

WezV

Are the bridge saddles stamped.  It lokks like they are but I can't make out what they say.

Not sure on the body as I think a Tokai would normally have ink stamps on bare wood in one of the cavities.  The neck pocket finish on this is quite crude in comparison to the neck.  but if its a refinish that doesn't rule out much

And yes, the wiring is not tokai either..  The pots look to be the stackpole variety which fender did use back in the 60's and 70's.  I am not sure of exact years.  Can you see any codes?  

Gagaryn

Saddles look to be stamped Fender Fender so reissues 

wrinkleygit

saddles are stamped fender on both sides, the refinish is fairly thickly applied as can be seen in the pickup routing also you can see the depth of finish in the chips around the body, under colour looks to be black, serial number has been stamped quite deeply in neck pocket & is easily readable despite the amount of finish applied, there are numbers on the side of the pots but because of their position I couldn't read them (especially with my eyesight ) without unsoldering & removal, I also tried to photo the markings on the capacitor without much success, thanks for your comments, mike

wrinkleygit

had another look for pot codes & can just make out some numbers on the lower tone control, looks like 250k AUD with 304 6114 below, can't see anything else & not easy to take a pic with my iPhone

WezV

I think that makes them from the 14th week of 61!

wrinkleygit

spoken to my daughter who learnt to play on this & has played it for a lot longer than I had, she remembers the saddles being "manky" green coloured brass ones which we swapped out for some new ones, so the saddles are red herrings, if there are any knowledgeable strat experts near the Devon/Somerset border I would be happy to let them have a look as there might be more to this than I first thought, thanks again for your input, mike.

WezV

well it looks like some of the bits may be older than the neck. The tone pots may be 60's but it would be hard to pin down the volume pot without peeling some bits back.  The switch looks to be 2nd generation CRL - the white centre makes it mid 60s ish

The pickups and wires/masking tape don't look wrong for that period either - definitely worth getting it checked out.  

The cap also looks to be a black beauty, usually found on 60's gibsons and i would expect to be an addition here, but you never know with fender caps

Obviously bits have been changed over the years, so don't get too excited just yet.  the additional wire curled under the bridge pickup probably rules out that pickup being original