NGD 1996 Made in Japan 68' Stratocaster.

[stephen sawall]

1996 Made in Japan 68' Stratocaster.
Fender locking tuners
Dimarzio Blue Velvet pickups

 

[MrDowntown]

Congrats. HNSD! I just love strats….and Strat styles.

 

[stephen sawall]

Saturday I set up the guitar the way I like them. I will do the fine tune in a few days after it settles.

I have a real 1969 Stratocaster I bought in 1978. I got to say it's very close. The reissue is hard to tell from the original.

 

[JackBootedThug]

The Japanese make some fine instruments. I would love to get ahold of a Japanese yjm.

 

[roodboy]

sweet guitar
7.25" radius?

 

[stephen sawall]

sweet guitar
7.25" radius?

Not sure.

 

[VonBonfire]

Congrats! The 68's are a great guitar. In '99 my old man wanted a strat. We went to a GC that was blowing out CS strats and I tried about 25 strats, almost every one they had on the wall. Ultimately I narrowed it down to a sunburts '60 CS, a seafoam '58 CS and the '68. I picked the '58 for him. I knew I was on the right track when my buddy showed up with the '60 two weeks later, having separately demo'ed all those guitars. He still has it. The '68 was every bit the equal of those guitars IMO and a whole lot more reasonably priced. Great score brother. Enjoy it loudly, enjoy it often.

 

[VonBonfire]

Not sure.

Almost certain it's 7.25. I had a woodstock reverse image Hendrix strat. It was very similar, just upside down, to the '68. So comfortable for chording. I called it my rhythm machine.

 

[psychodave]

I’ve always liked my 68 reissue. Mine is a little older than yours.

 

[stephen sawall]

I bought this 68' reissue off a friend. He bought it new. I had played it many times over the years.
I have a EMG DG20 that is going in this guitar.
The 1969 Strat is going back to stock.

 

[311splawndude]

Pretty hot
I'm not real familiar with these tuners. They look interesting.

 

[stephen sawall]

Think I want a Hipshot™ Tremsetter for it too.

 

[Speeddemon]

Nice score!

Does anyone know when the "Crafted in Japan" started?
I got an MIJ '68 RI as well, late 90's or early 2001/2002 at the latest, in Olympic White (basically the normal version of the Hendrix Woodstock strat) that came with Texas Specials... I changed the bridge pickup to a DiMarzio Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues, quite nice.

 

[stephen sawall]

https://serialnumberlookup.fender.com/lookup/

You can run the serial number and find out a fair amount.

 

[stephen sawall]

I hope to get more time to play this one this weekend. Been busy lately. I need to do a direct comparison with my vintage Strat.

 

[Kelly]

Man, I should have bought one of those years ago. I almost picked up one the the Japanese 50s reissues back when they were new. They are really excellent guitars, although I don't like 7.25 necks.

 

[Speeddemon]

https://serialnumberlookup.fender.com/lookup/

You can run the serial number and find out a fair amount.

That link didn't found anything for my Crafted in Japan P0##### serial.
This site : https://www.fuzzfaced.net/serial-numbers-stratocaster-japan.html
told me between 1999 and 2002.

 

[stephen sawall]

The link did not work for a friend of mine on his phone. I put in the same serial number on my phone and it worked.