Pirk's guitars and amps !

Fender '54 Stratocaster Reissue Made in Japan (MIJ) in 93/94 in the Fujigen factory for Fender Japan. These were based on the 1950's pre-CBS '54 and '57models. Highest quality of work throughout. Almost every production detail is stickled. Been playing for years I have owned and played many Strats in my time and this one is one of my favorites. This guitar isn‘t like brand new, this guitar has mojo! ;-) This is the Premium version, not the standard! This is the ST54 model with Japanese Ash body. The body is a glorious piece of Japanese Ash, otherwise known as Sen. Sen is lighter than Ash but still shares the same highly figured grain patterns. The sunburst finish is 'two-tone'. The Sunburst finish is as good as any Custom Shop with the beautifully grained body showing through. This high end Stratocaster has a 100% nitrocellulose lacquer finish. This guitar has got plenty of charakter and still weight 6.5 lbs. The back of the body has some small cracks which upon close inspection do appear to just be in the paint. The headstock has a ding on the back and a small crack at the top and there is a hairline crack on one of the higher frets which has been repaired also. The neck has had a repair but you can't feel this when playing though and the repair is great, nice and sturdy. It's just a decent battered axe that has been relic'd naturally as opposed to having some guys in the Fender factory trying to re-create the finish artificially. The neck is thick. This neck feels huge with tiny frets, but again that's part of the mojo. I have converted myself to a chunky neck cult years ago, those are great. I'm convinced that big one-piece necks are part of the recipe for great tone. One piece maple neck with 'skunk stripe' has the vintage 7.25 radius. Overall, a great neck. The profile is a cross between a ‚V‘ and a ‚U‘ and is quite chunky. Neck Width at Nut & 12th Fret: 1 11/16 in. 2 1/16 in. It has 21 vintage style frets and this maple neck has frets stabbed directly into neck, no fretboard. The frets are in good condition with no fret buzz. The guitar has perfect intonation and the neck is unbelievably playable and just perfect. The neck fits, feels, plays, responds, without a hitch. The round string guide denotes this as a '54. The tuners are vintage Kluson style tuners which are the nicest looking for Stratocaster style guitars ever used. The Kluson style tuners work perfectly and the trem with 'Fender' stamped string saddles is typical of all Fender vintage setups. This guitar originaly has staggered pole '50th pickups made in USA and 'Fender' stamped string saddles. It is therefore a fully fledged Reissue model and not one of the economy versions which lacked both features. Steel trem block made in USA and the trem arm is a Hank Marvin easy mute. The volume and tone pots are full sized CTS and the switch, which is 5 way modern type could have been a vintage style 3-way but I like the 5-way even though it is not authentic. The Fender 50's pickups they have a harmonic complexity and depth with lots of vintage punch. They sound nice and full with a wide range of tones. They are very clear and strong. Special attention was given by Fender to the pickups. Examination revealed that the original Strat pickups had larger pole pieces than do the modern ones. This feature along with the windings and potting were duplicated for this guitar. Pickup accuracy is especially important because it gives this Strat a different sound from modern instruments. It sounds great through a vintage style tube amp, and has a warm, narrow sound. This one  is the premium version of this model fitted with DiMarzio HS-3 in the bridge which gives it a bit more bite, and Fender 50's pickups (made in USA) in the neck and middle, the sound is superb. The serial number is N021247 and it was made in 93/94 in the Fujigen factory. This is Fender '54 Stratocaster Reissue MIJ and l love it either way, it's a nice playing instrument that sounds absolutely great. I am always looking for that special guitar and those are the ones I keep. Really nice action and feel to it, makes me want to pick it up and play everytime I walk around. If you can get your hands on one of these MIJ ST-54s, I can't recommend them highly enough. All USA components and hand-craftsmanship that the Japanese are so well-known for. A truly great instrument !! This is an example of a guitar that just keeps getting better & better with age.

Here is the low-down on this Fender Stratocaster '54 Reissue MIJ …

1. 8 screw, single-ply scratchplate.

    

2. 21 fret maple neck with 'skunk' stripe.

    

3. Truss rod adjuster at body end of neck

    

4. One string guide; round type for the '54.

    

5. Vintage Kluson style tuners,

    

6. Staggered pole pickups (see note below*)

    

7. String saddles stamped 'Fender' (see note below**)   

    

* Note: although the originals would have been fitted with a three-position pickup selector switch, Reissues have five-position switches.  

** Note that 'economy' versions were exported with unstamped string saddles and non-staggered pole standard pickups. 

*** Note: 

When in the early 80's it finally dawned on the corporate overlords at CBS that they were well on the way to running Fender's reputation and sales into the ground, they moved to stanch the hemorrhage by bringing in a new Fender management team recruited from the Japanese multinational corporation Yamaha's USA operation.

The new team set about studying ways of bringing Fender back from the precipice. Taking a cue from the success of the Japanese 'copy' guitars, they included in their plan of attack a return to the guitars that had made the company's reputation in the first place -- the classic Stratocasters and Telecasters of the 1950's and early 1960's. And so began the American vintage reissue series -- the 1952 and 1962 Telecaster reissues and the Stratocaster reissues based on the original 1954, 1957 and 1962 models.

To do battle in the Asian market with the Strat and Tele clones that had heavily damaged Fender's sales, another initiative was begun to fight the copycats on their own turf. Fender launched a Japan-based manufacturing operation licensed to create and market guitars using not only the classic Fender designs but bearing the Fender name. And so Fender Japan was born.

When the American Fender team visited Japan to see how their counterparts were faring in the effort to capture the magic that had made vintage Fender guitars so special, they made a startling discovery. As Dan Smith, head of Fender USA marketing, was quoted in Tony Bacon and Paul Day's excellent THE FENDER BOOK, "Everybody came up to inspect them and the guys almost cried, because the Japanese product was so good - it was what we had been having a hell of a time trying to do."

By 1985, CBS decided it had had enough of the musical instrument business and gave the Fender management team the opportunity to buy the company, which they were able to raise the capital to do. But the manufacturing facilities in Fullerton were not part of the deal -- the Fender factory itself was sold to another buyer.

Now owning a guitar company but without the physical means to make guitars, Fender's new owners turned to their colleagues in Japan whose Fender guitars had met with great success on their home turf and who had also successfully provided the lower-cost line of Squier guitars to the American and European markets. Until Fender's new owners were able to set up a new factory in California, Japanese-made instruments were for a time in 1985-86 the only new Fenders arriving at dealers' showrooms in the U.S.

Why did famous American company decide to put their name on products made in Japan? Beyond an expedient reaction to market pressures, the reasons were shrewdly tied into the make-up of 'the Japanese character' as a people and a nation.

Before the licensing deals were struck, Japanese replicas of classic Fender guitars had proven themselves to be very well-made instruments. The dedication of Japanese workers and the excellence of Japanese products had by that time become apparent to the world, as Japan's dominance in automobile and electronics manufacture, for example, had made abundantly clear. It came as no surprise, then, that manufacturing standards in guitar-making would be similarly advanced.

Japan's culture is one in which duty, team contribution and the idea of work done correctly is a given. There is no 'Friday Phenomenon' in Japan's factories, where goods produced at the end of the work week are susceptible to careless assembly because the workers' minds are elsewhere. One does what one does to the absolute best of one's ability, always. It's a matter of personal honor.

Fender Japan guitars, the reissues especially, have over the years provided knowing musicians with great quality and value at a relatively modest price, until just a few years ago co-existing in the US marketplace with their more-expensive American Fender cousins.

Standard-production Fender Japan guitars capture the Fender mystique beautifully and do it with unmatched consistency. The higher-end Fender Japan models, in which the dictates of price-point have been discarded in favor of creating the highest-quality guitar possible, rival and can even surpass the best examples of Fender USA Custom Shop work. Until now, the availability of these guitars outside of Japan has been nearly non-existent.