Fender '68 Reissue Stratocaster

It's a early 90's 3 tone sunburst, large headstock Strat built in Japan. Maple neck, two tone one volume, well you know the rest. Bought is used without any accessories.

I tried every kind of strat I could get my hands on. The Japanees models had the right sound for me. I really like the tone of the pickups even though they are a little weak and noisy. I can't decide if I want to change them to duncans or not. My friend has a Photo Flame Japanees Strat, and the pickups are much different. Not bad, but they don't quite have the funky mid's that the reissue has. The pickups are very bright especially at loud volumes. You need to roll off the tone control at times. This is a great blues guitar. Played through my Fender Princeton amp it's amazing. I generally use pickup position s 2 and 4 for blues, and it's just beautiful. It also works well for 80's Pop through my johnson on a Marshall setting. If you use this guitar for high volume and distortion, you will want to invest in a noise gate!! Obviously not designed for Hard Rock / Metal, but with the right amp and enough drive, it will do in a pinch.

I bought mine used, so there are a couple of chips. I don't know what kind of treatment it had before, but It seems to have held up well. I don't know if it was set up by the factory, or if the previous owner tweaked it, but it plays great. Very good action for a Fender. The bridge has started to rust. (you would think that they could put a little more chrome on the damn thing). The pickup selector switch is noisy, and will soon be replaced, probably, pots, and maybe pickups too? Overall quality is very good for this price guitar. It feels much more delicate than my Gibsons, but this is a good thing as it affects my playing and tone.

As I said before the guitar feels a bit delicate, but I think that has more to do with it's light weight and thin neck than actual construction. I compared it to new American Strats, and couldn't see a huge difference. The neck joint is tight, and it stays in tune better than my LesPaul. The hardware is starting to rust, so that might be a future upgrade. The tuners are stiff and sticky, but they do hold tune. The finish is probably a poly--something that will outlast all of us, but won't crack like my G&L's finish. All my guitars have Schaller strap locks. You only have to see a guy drop a new that day $3000.00 Jackson and watch the headstock break off and hang there like a severed limb once to become a believer! Get some NOW! I don't gig much anymore, but the nature of my music demands more than one style guitar anyway.

Never dealt with Fender support.

I've been playing for 20 years. I currently own a 97 Les Paul Classic, 81 Gibson Custom shop Explorer, PS-4 Jackson, Yari DY-71, G&L F100-1, and the Strat. I play through a Johnson Millennium, and a Fender Princeton. If it grew feet, I would be torn between another 68, and a George Fullerton signature G&L. I wish that Fender could build a guitar with something close to the quality of a G&L, but that's dreaming. I play mostly Metal / Hard Rock, but have been playing more blues the older I get. I can pick up this guitar grab the Princeton and go sit out on the deck in the sunshine and blow an entire day. Nuff said.

MADE IN 1998.JAPANESE.21 FRETS.THREE SINGLE COILS.5WAY SWITCH.MAPLE NECK AND FRETBOARD.ASH BODY WITH OLYMPIC WHITE FINISH.

IF YOUR GOING TO BUY THIS GUITAR YOU HAVE TO SCRAP THE STOCK PICKUPS AND PUT IN SOMETHING GOOD. I TRIED CUSTOM SHOP 54 SINGLE COILS AND THEY SOUND SPARKLY WITH GOOD BITE AND DEFINITION.CLASSIC STRAT SOUND.

YOU WILL HAVE TO HAVE A SHOP DO THE SETUP. BUT AFTER THAT,YOU WILL HAVE ONE OF THE BEST PLAYING/FEELING GUITARS AROUND.MY GUITAR BUDDIES ALL LOVE IT.NO FLAWS.NECK POCKET CUT PERFECT.SOMETHING YOU WANT TO CHECK ON LOWER END GUITARS.

SOLID,VERY HEAVY MASS.UNBELEIVABLY WELL BUILT.JAPANESE MANUFACTURING ALWAYS AMAZES ME.HOW DO THEY DO IT?

NEVER HAD TO.DONT WANT TO.

BEEN PLAYING FOR 15 YEARS AND STARTING TO BUILD MY COLLECTION.LARGE HEADSTOCK AND QUALITY SEWED IT UP FOR ME.YOU CANT GO WRONG,JUST PUT IN SOME DECENT PICKUPS AND YOU HAVE A WINNER.

My guitar was made 1998 in Japan. It's got the u-shape neck, x-tra large headstock, maple fingerboard, vintage tuners/tremolo, three ply pickguard and an ash body. Everything on the guitar is stock and that's the way I like it!

I like this guitar because it gives me variety. I play everything from blues to country and it ets me pretty close to the tone I need for each style. However, this guitar seems to sound better with clean tones. When used with distortion, it's not a very heavy or fat sound. It gives me all I need though so I like it. I play rhis guitar through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.

I haven't changed anything on the guitar or had anything re-adjusted so I can't complain in this category.

This guitar seems pretty solid with the neck solidly intact. I would gig and jam with it without a backup for sure.

N/A

I LOVE THIS GUITAR! This is my first electric guitar and I think it was a great choice.

standard 60's vintage strat stuff...Big headstock, transition logo, very thin maple neck, thin wire frets. Bought when first issued in late '89.

I am blues hound so this guitar suits me well. Sound is a little thin at low volumes due to the weak pickups but fattens up nicely at higher volumes. Neck and middle pickups sound awesome. Bridge is way too bright. Played through a Music Man 50, this combo will set you well on the way to terminal tinnitus....

Just as good as the vintage stuff....Guitar setup was perfect for my playing style. Even took the guitar apart to see the wiring which was very clean. Body is just the right weight for comfortable playing.

This is where I had a problem. Although the electronics are neatly packaged, the switches are prone to noise which is annoying at high volumes. Also, the jack plus is always loose which is another problem.

Overall, I love this guitar for its fast neck, great blues tone and fantastic looks. The only change I am going to make is the addition of a mother of toilet seat pick guard for looks and a contact restor injection system to quiet the controls!....I also have two Fender Tellies which are both ok...One is the standard which the controls and switches suck doo!!! the second is a Photo Flame I bought used which has a great wwwwiiiiiiiddddeeee neck and looks cool from a distance. Modelled after the 59 it is a really cool axe!

1997 Natural Ash body, 3 SC pickups, 7.5" radius neck, maple neck with added maple fretboard thus no "skunk stripe", standard fender tremolo, two string trees on lower 4 strings, large headstock, 60's "transistion" logo, w/b/w 11 screw pickguard, skinny "vintage" frets, and I believe "C" shape neck, not too thin, not a baseball bat, nitrocellulose varnish on neck, body, and fretboard

Pickups were very weak, noisy, and squealed at medium and high volumes. Sound was sweet, but squealing made pickup unusable. Replaced with a set of Texas specials, now it sounds perfect. Low rating for original pickups, 10 for the Texas specials which I think are the best Fender SC pickups ever produced.

Setup on this guitar ordered from me from Sam Ash was dead nuts right out of the box. However since I hate whammy bars, I tightened the claws and added 2 extra springs to make a flush mounted "hard tail" bridge. Fretwork was perfect, the nut was perfect. Like strats I remember as a kis from the late 60's/early 70's, the E & B strings would get caught in the string tree. Replacing the trees with Amer Standard string trees solved this problem. The finish was dead perfect. Action was perfect, intonation was perfect.

This guitar NEVER leaves my house and is only used for studio work. Other than the 5 way pickup switch and the little "crafted in Japan" on the neck near the body, this guitar is pretty much exactly like the real thing back in the late 60's. It really should be called a '66 strat reissue though.

Always had great luck with Fender for my 30 years of playing.

I love this guitar. I bought it over all the American Standards. It is constructed as good if not better than a custom shop Fender. Only problem is the wimpy squealing pickups and the lower string tree which you can hear the little "ting" in a quiet room when ya bend notes. Exactly like my first Fender my father bought me in '67!!!! BUY THIS GUITAR!!!!!

This is a '97 model re-issue of a 1968 Fender Startocaster. It was made in Japan and has 21 smallish frets which yield a "spidery" feel to it. Needless to say it has two tones (The mid tone I re-fitted with a TBX and re-wired it to the bridge pickup) and one master volume control. It came stock with 3 alnico vintage stagger single coil pickups (which I hated and replaced with DiMarzio HS-3s - like all my other guitars). The body's a very very grainy ash (gorgeous to behold) and the neck's maple with a maple 7.25" radius fretboard (Which I scalloped quite deeply due to my playing style). I got it for $695 Canadian + 15% taxes (blood money from our corrupt greedy excuse for a government). It gets an 8 because it is well constructed and the changes that I made are simply par for any course.

This guitar suits my style of music ideally (neo-classical). It is being currently run through a Digitech GSP2101 into a Marshall. The guitar has no noise due to the pickup replacement and is capable of many sounds. It's great for everything from an obnoxious SRV sound to a silken Yngwie Malmsteen distortion. The pickups have incredible definition - every note of a 60 or 70 note run played at over 160 bpm is heard perfectly and the TBX on the bridge eliminates that glassy brittle single coil sound and gives it some definate balls. WHat I could live without on this guitar is the round radius as it is really hard to play sweep hammer combinations involving more than two strings due to the height difference. I also am not particularly fond of how short the frets are... they are narrow which I like but there isn't enough height. I like to play with at least 4mm between the strings and the 12th fret and this makes it more difficult to play rapidly. The scalloping really helps (It is NOT stock) I give it a 10 for sound because it sounds exactly as I want it to.

The construction of the body was amazing - far better than any of the US strats I've played (damned unions!) but the setup left something to be desired. They had the action down far too low the truss too tight (causing buzz) and the trem screwed in so tight that it didn't float. As I said it was built perfectly but a blind epileptic cripple must have set it up. It gets a 7 because action in itself is minor. IMHO if it is reversible then it can't be too serious and the construction was immaculate.

This guitar's fine live and I depend on it. Only a mad man would go on stage without a backup but if someone made me do it at gun point I'd be confident that this guitar'd be fine.

The warranty was one year and the Fender people suck. I broke the vibrato bar off which they replaced free of charge but it took a bit. These guys really could not give a shit about Joe Average unless he has a $1500 + guitar (which I'd only consider spending on a neck thru BC Rich) They get 4 because they at least DID fulfill the warranty and they DO know what they're talking about.

I've been playing about a decade. When I purchased this guitar I compared it to similarly priced Ibanez and Jackson guitars (which blew goats - goddam shredder guitars make it too easy). I chose this one because it had the best construction and the most versatility of the bunch. Also I'm a rabid traditionalist and '68 I feel was a damned good year for Fender and I'd feel really guilty to scallop an original. If it were stolen or lost I'd be mighty pissed off and would follow my ears to the plebian wringing quarter tones out of it because they don't know how to play a scalloped neck and then kill them. I'd probably get the same guitar or maybe a Blackmore or Malmsteen strat to replace it. If I had the money. Personally I wish that Fender would have offered different frets or fret radius but as they say... My favourite feature about this guitar is its price. It's a great deal and there's no guilt to be felt when you cut into it.

Mine is a '98 model, 3-tone sunburst. These are made in Japan. The other reviews explained its features well. Quickly, it has a basswood body (tho I've heard some say ash?), awesome U-shaped glossy maple neck, large-style headstock, etc.

Great sound. What can i say? Sounds like a strat? :) As most will tell you, the pickups are a tad weak. Especially the bridge one, in my opinion. Very bright and biting.. too much for my tastes. I put in a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues pickup in the bridge (stacked humbucker with single coil sound) and I like it a lot. I really like the other pickups, tho. The middle p/u is reverse wound so positions 2/4 are hum cancelling (tho position 2 isn't anymore since I put in the Dimarzio as it's a stacked humbucker). The selector switch is a tad crackly. I use this guitar with a hotrodded (by Tim Swartz) '77 Marshall Mark II head into a JCM800 "1936"-style 2x12 cab (75 watt Celestions). Great rig. Very versatile.. and the strat has its own versatility.. so I'm good :) I like a strat's position one for distortion with my Marshall's preamp up or with my old Big Muff pedal. 2-4 are awesome when playing clean and are thick with distortion. I tend to like the bridge pickup more on a Gibson LP or Epiphone Sheraton for clean sounds tho, when compared to the strat's biting sound. I don't own either but have played both a lot. Love that Sheraton II.

Sent to me extremely well set-up. Intonation and the action were all adjusted wonderfully. Same with the pickups' height. Awesome 3-tone sunburst finish.. the wood grain is very nice.. it sorta forms a "v" shape under the bridge.. very nice. The neck is gorgeously glossy in a rich color. The headstock appears to have a minute black spec laquered under it.. unbelievably tiny, tho. My only complaint about this guitar was the gallons of glue slop around the sides of the frets and the nut. It came off very easily but left many of the frets very dull. I shined them up with 0000 steel wool which brought them almost completely back to life. My rating for the category is for the finish and the setup.

It's assembled/built very well.. much better than my Mexican strat was.. tho that was a nice guitar, too. Wonderful player, the U-neck is a dream to play. I'd gig with it without a backup any day.

Fender has almost always been nice to me on the telephone. Tho the fine folks at Gibson's customer suuport have always been even better.

If anything happened to this I'd absolutely buy one again! For only $414 from Indoor Storm (best price I've found) this can't be beat. Sounds much fuller than the Mexi strat I had. The neck is awesome and comfortable to play. It's thin, but not too thin. I'll eventually replace all the other pickups with Virutal Vintages, I think. But even in stock condition, a super guitar.

Good value, I din't wanna dish out G's for a 74 strat (if I could find one). 21 frets, glossy maple neck, alnico pickups, large headstock, vintage tremolo and tuners, vintage white...frets are tiny, and chances are I might change the neck (much too radiused for my liking, but that's just me. Any suggestions?)

I like it alot, the only thing I would say is the tiny frets and radiused fretboard, but then agian, that's just me. For 700 CDN, it's well worth it. Sounds ok through solid state, even better through tube (I play Uli Roth, Blackmore et al)

Nothing to complain about here, love the color!

Yes yes and yes.

I've been playing at an excellent rate for about 3 years. I have a garbage solid state practice amp, might get a PEAVEY classic 30 (no supertremolo's yet :) the only thing I would adjust is the neck, but that's another 200, still better than getting a used one for thousands of dollars. saved me time as well, It's my baby:)

It was made in 1984 in Japan, it is made of ash which is nice and light and the neck and fretboard are beautiful polished maple.Large headstock.

I play Mudhoney etc and it suits me perfectly. Like my Jaguar it also sounds great clean and with metal music. Say what you like humbuckers are good for some music but im strictly into the Fender sound.

Action is great. Cos i got it second hand and it was from 84' the fret board is pretty beaten(not too bad though) The only thing wrong with the finish was that some loser had bought this guitar(its left handed) and tried to pull a Hendrix, hence puting one of the strap holders at the other end leaving a hole for me! Anyway its un-noticable now and no real harm was done cos the finish holds up well.

Fuck I beat this guitar and it loves it. It stays in tune and always feels great.

Over all I love this guitar only slightly less than my Jaguar. This is because the strat isnt short scale and I have small hands. It is strong, looks great and sounds better. I would buy another one in an instant. Still waiting on the Twin Reverb but for now the Marshall will do.

Made in 1997 or 96 not sure in Japan. 21 fres. Solid body, 2 tone, and Volume controls. 5-way selector. Pickups standard lower priced strat ones 3 single coil Body and neck both ash i think. Finish see-through. Body style? Duh strat. Floyd Rose tremlo(sp). Tuners locking brand- ? Neck scale? medium frets. Came with gig bag and cable.

It suits my style fine. I'm just an intermediate guitarist don't play any shows or gigs. I do like hendrix/SRV type music and it works fine. All i have for an amp is a little peavey rage i do use a danelctreco daddy-o pedal it sounds good. If using just the neck or bridge pickup i get a little buzz. I don't the pickups that much i plan on replacing them w/ lace sensors or texas specials.

The action and ecverything on this gitar is fine.The pickups aren't great sounding but they were set up right. Bridge is fine. The nut has some problems though. Whenever i bend the g string i hear it creak and squeak i'm probaly going to replace it with a bone nut.

I haven;t played it live so i don't know how good it works then. Every thing except the afore metioned seems durable. Finish is lasting good. So are the strap buttons. It is dependable but the tone and volume knobs kept falling of so i put some paper around the inside of the knobs. and now they work fine. Itt is pretty durable because it has fallen of off something it was leaning against a good many times.

Haven't dealt with the company. It is under a warranty but i forgot to send tyhe card in but if you do i think it is a 1 maybe 3 year warrantyy

I have been playing for 2 years i first owned an acoustic and i really like this guitar. With new pickups it would be great i really like the neck it is super fast. If it were stolen i would probaly get a more expensive one maybe a Strat plus or a buddy guy or ec strat. I love the neck and hate the pickups. It was a whole lot better then the similar priced tew-mex ones and my cousin recommend this one to me. For the money this is a great guitar. Remember to look at a bunch like this because some were great but others were less desireable.