How good is a Fender f5 acoustic

MikeWoodward

Hope the forum can help. Recently been given an old acoustic guitar, a fender f5 acoustic serial no. fy25385. I’ve cleaned it up and restrung it and it sounds “ok” but I’m not experienced enough or have a sufficiently educated ear to evaluate how good/bad it is. In it’s time was it a cheap beginner guitar or was it something better than that? Any help much appreciated Mike

ICBM

Welcome Mike .

It was a fairly cheap guitar, a bit above real beginner level but not a lot. It was probably made in Japan, early-mid 1980s (later ones might have been Korea, I can't remember), all-plywood, and with pretty poor machineheads from memory.

It will sound OK, probably with quite a nice 'old' tone to it now, but it's definitely no vintage Martin. Check for neck bow and top bellying problems before you spend any money on it, most cheaper guitars of this sort of age tend to suffer from them.

Hope that helps!

MikeWoodward

Thanks - much appreciated