Re: Fender/partscaster body identification help, please?
ya it does look MIJ too me as well.. does not look like the various MIM bodies i have
yeah, definitely does NOT look like an authentic black 95 AmStd lefty I bought on the cheap to tinker and flip a while back. and NOTHING like the black MIM i modded to Kurt Cobain's stage guitar specs (not a rabid fan, just accidentally had the exact same pups gathering dust, though it'd be fun and something different)...
no swimming pool, no microtilt - not a 90s amstd, don't know about the rest of em though, but doubt it either way
no HSH rout, no weird circle-holes - not a mexi
.... but it's also very unlike any of affinity etc router practice bodies I've seen.
thing is, I didn't take it seriously at all until I noticed the super-similar lines with the blue MIJ, thinking it had to be some fake... I'd got it, super-grimey, with loaded pickguard for $75 from some shady CL guy who seemed kinda desperate for cash (rent? alimonies? drugs?), buying it purely for the pickups, a duncan rail and two "duncan" singles. He was kinda giving me the creeps and the meetup was making me rather uncomfortable, so I was too busy watching my back to pay proper attention to examining the purchase thoroughly... Back home, I took a look: the guard was a mess and the pups appeared fake upon closer examination, with the rail measuring a measely 5k, and the singles being the "bar magnet underneath cheapo" style.
Dude promised a refund, but had already burned through the cash... Soon he stopped answering texts and calls, and disappeared forever. Stashed it in a corner and tried to forget the embarassment of it, only keeping it to cannibalize for screws and springs and the like if needed.
...Far later on, however, while modding an utterly babied and clearly luthier-pampered Charvel, I spotted a very familiar looking rail. No way was THAT one a fake. Some googling later, turned out I had two old-style, old-spec Duncan Rails, the one from the strat a cool rail the genius had installed wrong, with only one coil "on". Lol... as to the other two singles, those seem quite fake, or, rather, misrepresented by bearing Duncan covers. Quite useable sound-wise, though, and actually interesting.
Looking at the rest - a mix of really neatly done pots and broken cheapo china switch, gaudy gold saddles on a normal fender bridge, really nice pickguard and improvised pup mounts missing screws and springs, (possibly) authentic back cover with "Fender Super Bullets" sticker but totally BS "Fender Corona" neck plate - I started realizing that, far from 100% scammer junk, half this stuff was authentic... and the rest was the previous owner having gotten ripped off.
PS if you're thinking aww forget id'ing it, for $75, no way it's anything worthwhile... well, I've gotten as good or better deals, confirmed authentic, off totally non-shady individuals around here. a lot. seems some of our local prices are based on "try'n'sell before I toss" and/or "wifey ultimatum" spring cleaning rates, with the rest of the market pulled down by the lot of em. or maybe we just got an overabundance of ebay-happy partscaster quitters. So, a body w/trem, pickguard, and a Duncan Rail for 75 ain't that shocking... the righty Charvel Model 1A and the blue MIJ righty both came in better deals, with better pickups included (80s JB unused NOS, real, and Fender CS Texas Specials, all three of em, respectively) and a few parts on top of that, each for just a single c-note....and even better on whole or disassembled guitars sometimes. <$100 basses that destroy amstd's, in specs, in action, and in original msrp's, repeatedly, anyone? GOTTA LOVE SOCAL
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