Fender Pawn Shop Series - No April Fooling (Page 1 of 2)

Honestly, the first thing that popped into my mind was that it's a joke. It has also been added to Fender's site as well. From what I understand on other forums, Fender announced there was going to be a new series sometime last week. I even added one to my cart on MF to see if the following page said April Fools. If it's a joke, it's a dam* good one.

You know Squire came out with these 5 or 6 years ago they just dropped a fender logo on it.

I'm a Fender guy and all I have to say about this is AMEN!  But Gibson should stop doing this too.  The only American group that builds nice working class guitars anymore that have improved designs every year seems to be PRS.  They have their high end stuff too, but you can step into a number of high end instruments from them for less then $2000 being some are korean made.  I think Leo Fender never had a $ sign in his mind when he started building Esquires, and Telecasters back in the 50's, He had one goal move an instrument forward in an area it was lacking.  Leo did that, he wasn't the first guy to build a solid body guitar but he was the first one to build a production line solid body guitar.  No sooner did he do that he came out with the Stratocaster whats might be the most popular body shape and copied guitar in the history of modern guitar.  Leo would be spining around in his grave to see a Fender 51.  There is no refinements to it, and it looks like about the quality of the 51 squire.  Its as I recall a tele neck, strat body, some fender bass pickguard and a Humbucker???  Stop trying to rewrite history with this ugly guitars.  I told myself I was going to hold back, you can thank me later that I did.

I agree with much of what has already been said. I read a commentary on Fender awhile ago that was pretty interesting. It essentially said that Fender isn't in the business of making high quality guitars, it's in the business of making money. The example that was given explained how Fender will never give its consumer base the exact products they want because continuing to offer guitars that are "closer than ever" to their ancestors will rope people in every time and make substantially more profit. If the market's saturated with perfect copies at reasonable prices, the company would cease to exist. It's Marketing 101. When I pull the trigger on a Thinline Strat, It'll be a G&L.

Your right, the 51 was the only one that Squire built.  But the 72' is the same guitar setup with a simi hollow body.  I'm not saying they are bad guitars but I am saying as a Fender guy I feel let down.

That said I got to play my friends new Mexico Standard Telecaster.  I was impressed with the sound coming out of the pickups stock.  We opened the control cavity up and it was fully sheilded!  We were going to replace the tone cap from a .047 to a .022 uF.  As I was soldering on his guitar I noticed that the cheap pots have been replace with Brass shaft CTS pots!  I was very impressed to say the least.  So I do think that Fender is good about giving buyers good quality these days in the electronics department, and the pickups aren't bad but they still could be better.  If Fender makes guitars to this caliber then the new

Last cool Fender guitar I saw at a pawn shop was a 1976 Stratocaster... The asking price was 4000 dollars..  Me being polite I smiled and said wow!  that is a cool guitar..  Pawn shops for guitar shopping are insanely high priced.. I don't get the design mostly and the pawn shop relation.. but that is just me and Im soooo biased..  The new guys over at Fender are way cool and my old buds from Marshall and Yamaha..
JB

I believe the Made in Mexico Fenders have the same electronics parts as the USA models, they're just assembled in Mexico.  That said, buy American anyway 

I'm with you here. Not everyone has $1500.00+ for a guitar. $500.00- $700.00 is much more reasonable. Get different p/u later or whatever.
The 'strat' with the f-hole would look great with a standard Strat pickguard (have to be modified of course), maybe dump in different pickups depending on how the stock ones sound. Nothing wrong with this new line. I've seen worse, usually from Gibson.