Mex Strat - is any of it genuine?

Paul_C

A customer has asked me to have a look at a Strat he's looking to sell, to see if any of it is genuine.

The body is dated 1996 and the neck 1990 (the serial number agrees with the 1990 date), so clearly they haven't left the factory together and the scratchplate looks a bit of a mess, so that's not original.

How about the tuners ? They look like they've been on the neck from new, but don't look like any Fender tuners I've ever seen.

Any help gratefully received.

Paul_C

hassleham

Just a heads up, your photos don't seem to be working!

Funkfingers

The neck and the entire pickguard and electronics assembly look genuine. The Sung-il vibrato could be from an early MIM Fender or some Asian copy. The body looks like an early MIM production, right down to the Alder facings over Poplar and the opaque beergut contour. The naff sunbursting on the upper horn is also characteristic of early MIM Fender.

I agree that the machineheads are wrong. Take one off. There may be locator peg holes in the headstock. 

TeleMaster

Neck looks fine. Tuning pegs are wrong. But it's a £300 guitar. It's not a huge amount to worry about. 

Funkfingers

Probably a cut ‘n’ shut of two MIM Fenders. Somebody chose their favourite parts of two Stratocasters to assemble their idea of one good one. The second guitar is all the rejected parts.

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I associate the single ply black pickguard with a two-tone sunburst finish and, possibly, black pickup covers and control plastics.

White pickups and control parts usually go with a three-ply white/black/white ‘guard.

Q: Does the serial number checker state the body colour of that original guitar?

Paul_C

Thanks folks, I'll pass that all on.

Sync

Funkfingers said:

Probably a cut ‘n’ shut of two MIM Fenders. 

From what I remember the early 90s MIM Strats were pretty much all cut n shut direct from the factory.

Whatever fit and some odd shimming/body neck angles to provide correct relief. Last min chisel and belt sand at qc stage too.

There was a massive uplift in quality focus and drive to improve production standards on MIMs in the early 2000s, not forgetting early 2000s usa standard strats only cost c £600 new then.

Everything got uplifted in quality, range and price. 

Find a good one and it's good. Bad one, more common on the early models and it's never worth it. For the money though, you can get a much newer used MIM.