Pros: Authentic reproduction, top of the line quality from Fender
Cons: to expensive to buy
The Bottom Line: This is a cool sounding Fender guitar that offers more vintage vibe than other Fender models. I'm not sure it's worth the new price tag however.
cheetah1's Full Review: Fender American Vintage '62 Stratocaster Electric ...
This is my review of the American vintage '62 Stratocaster reissue. Fender just had a huge price hike for their 2009 model year and I had to snatch one of these guitars up quick before the 390 dollar price increase took effect. The Fender '62 reissue Jazzmaster and Jaguar had the same 26% price hike as the strat. A lot of the amplifiers had a huge increase as well as many of you are aware.
I had been thinking Fender might drop prices because of the economic recession. Gibson has done this in the past, dropping the prices of certain models by hundreds of dollars durring tough economic times and then raising them when things got better in the economy.
The idea of the '57 and '62 Stratocaster reissues came about in 1982. The popularity and sales of the Fender brand was way down at the time. CBS which had been running the Fender company since 1965 would exit the guitar making business altogether in a couple years. The magic that was there when Leo Fender ran the company had vanished.
This current series of American vintage reissue guitars were introduced in the late '90s. The different models were introduced at different times, not all at once. At the time surf instrumental music had made a comeback with the release of "Pulp Fiction" in the movie theatres. There must have been a demand from customers to bring back retired guitars like the Jazzmaster and Jaguar which were popular in the early '60s.
Those that have an interest in Fender guitars are probably already familiar with the specs on this particular guitar but I'll rehash them anyway. The guitar has an alder body, Gotoh vintage style tuners, a synthetic bone nut. All the plastic on the guitar is aged which adds to it's vintage vibe. The guitar has a rather curved 7.25 radius maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard. Rosewood was first introduced on strats in 1959. The neck has a C shape with 21 vintage style frets installed. The neck itself is very comfortable to play and it has a laquer coating on the back. To adjust the truss rod the entire neck must be removed from the guitar.
It has a vintage style tremelo with an optional ash tray bridge cover. I wish the tremelo arm was longer. It would need a longer tremelo arm to have the same playability as a Jaguar or Jazzmaster.
The guitar has 3 American vintage '62 strat pickups that sound very nice. The pickups lend themselves to more of a vintage clean tone which is what I'm mainly interested in. Good tonal variety as you would expect from a high end Fender Stratocaster model.
The guitar itself looks very sleek and sexy. Neither to heavy or to light, perfectly balanced, the ideal stage guitar.
The case it comes with is very nice and vintage looking. The case has 2 locking clasps and there is a large compartment inside to store stuff such as picks and cables.
The other American vintage Stratocaster reissue guitar, the '57 reissue, differs from the '62 model in that it has no rosewood fingerboard on the neck. The pickups are a bit different on the '57 strat and the pickguard is only one ply instead of the '62s 3 ply unit. The number of screws holding the pickguard is different on both guitars.
The '62 reissue strat is quite a bit more expensive than the American standard strat model. There are differences in the paint used. The American standard uses urethane paint while the '62 reissue uses nitrocellulose laquer. Urethane is more durable than nitrocellulose but nitro laquer allows the instrument to breath and vibrate a bit more freely. Nitrocellulose laquer was first used on Fender instuments in the 50's and 60's and is usually the prefered choice for getting a good vintage tone from your guitar.
My guitar is painted in ocean turquoise. This metallic color actually did not appear in the Fender line until 1965. Durring the early 60's Fender experimented with many different shades of paint that originated from Dupont's nitrocellulose automotive paint line. Fender's 50's line up of colors was mainly just sunburst and blonde finishes with the Telecaster having that cool butterscotch tint. My guitar has a blue/green tint, a true surf color. It seems Fender has scaled back color options in recent years, maybe for economic reasons?
In the early 60's Fender's top of the line model was the Jaguar guitar followed by the Jazzmaster model. The Stratocaster was really the runt of the litter back then. In early 60's promotional photos the strat would take the back line behind the more expensive Jaguar and Jazzmaster models. Fender had hoped the more expensive Jaguar and Jazzmaster would outsell the strat, but of course that never happened.
Some who own early 60's Fender strats say the reissue sounds better than their collectible instruments. My other guitars have good single coil tone but only have about 80% of the tone that the '62 reissue does. The Fender '62 reissue has better note definition, better string to string tonal balance, a more sweet sounding guitar. It really does sound like a 1,500 dollar guitar which is what I paid for the instrument.
I have owned a couple other electric guitars that were more costly than the Fender. One was a Gibson '62 reissue SG and the other was a Gibson Les Paul anniversary model. The Les Paul had an outstanding tone but I think the Fender is equal to that guitar in tonal quality. Both very different guitars, but both having superb sound quality.
With the new price hikes this was probably my last chance to pick one of these guitars up. The new higher price tag is more than I would ever be willing to pay for a new instrument. I'm very happy and satisfied with my purchase. Now if you will excuse me, I must get back to polishing my Fender.
The Fender American Vintage 62 Stratocaster Electric Guitar is recreated in such awesome detail it recalls the vibe of the original. Nitro-laquer vint...More at American Musical Supply
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