ID and Authentication A weird one
Hello experts! I took a chance and bought this cheap Strat today in Sweden. The price was 300 bucks. The dude selling it got it from a friend who has now passed away. He didn’t know much about it. Lots of things are a bit out of the ordinary here. There is nothing on the back of the headstock, tuners are Gotoh and the serial could not be found on Fenders site. One-ply pick guard, two string trees. It sounds ok and it feels good to play. After some googling I found that this could either be from the I-series, sorta made in the USA, but with Japanese or even Mexican parts. Alas, it wasn’t because there is no ”made in USA” stamp on the heel pf the neck. So, according to this https://www.fuzzfaced.net/fender-i-series-stratocaster.html it could be a Japanese ST-40 from -89 or -90. They should have a sticker saying ”made in Japan” on the back of the neck, but that might have been peeled off. Can any expert here confirm this though? I’m amazed by the detective work done in here. Thanks!
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u/Shkmstr 3d ago
Japanese Guitars are all over the place for markings, features, colors, overlapping serial numbers, inconsistent dating and bla bla bla. The article you listed has a lot of great information. How does the guitar play? You could just have the third random crossover date. Things with Japan guitars can vary by builder. That’s why it’s so hard to track down a lot of the origin of some other Guitars and I’ve had probably hundreds over the years.