by Bassassin » Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:30 pm
Nice looking Strat. I'm inclined to think it might be Korean - a few hardware details are very similar to a Korean Thinline Tele copy I had recently, and aren't things I've seen on MIJ guitars.
My Thinline was branded Taurus - presumably a UK dealer/distributor rebrand, and there was no clue to its origin other than a Made In Korea sticker on the headstock. It had an identical neckplate with overtly rounded corners & deeper screw countersinks than Japanese plates I'm familiar with. I've also seen plates similar to this one on MIK Hondos.
Most MIJ plates aren't blank - they tend at least to have the MIJ stamp & sometimes carry numbers, factory name & other text. I can only think of Kasuga who used blank plates, but no doubt other factories did.
The truss cover is interesting too. The MIJ Fender copies I've seen which have a trc rather than a heel-end adjustment or head-end bullet tend to have white plastic or chrome covers. This one again is the same as my Korean Tele - black plastic with a sharp point & shaped to the headstock curvature. I should add I'm using the pics on the Ebay listing for reference here.
Of course these are just details, they might be clues or might mean nothing. It would be interesting to get a look at the electrics & hardware to see if they offer any clues, and find out what the body construction is - my Tele was ply.
One comment I'd like to make about the listing, though - you can be absolutely certain it's not from the 1960s - simply, no Oriental factory was producing copies anything like as accurate as this one that early on, this guitar is 70s, or if it turns out to be Korean, even early 80s.
Jon.
Remembering of all that is past
I see everything before me at last...