What guitars were these?

[tot_Ou_tard]

I was in a very small music store today & saw a Stratocaster & a Tele with Fender on the headstock, but neither of them said anything else. No Stratocaster, no Telecaster, nuttin'!

The woman in the store didn't know from strats n' teles. What were they?! They were very nice looking with natural wood & Seymour Duncans.

Unfortunately, I only had a few minutes free & so didn't get a chance to play them.

Each looked brand new & had tags that read $629.00.

Any ideas?

[Cranium]

http://fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0265002521

http://fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0265106537

http://fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0265102541

Special Edition models.

[SuperSwede]

I have tried the lite ash telecaster, but I found it to be anything but pleasant! It had a somewhat sharp, dry sound. No similarities to the standard tele tone with all its authority. This one was rather faceless.

[tot_Ou_tard]

Yup, those were they. In natural birdseye. Thanks!

[Cranium]

I never tried one but I read many reviews, mainly on the strat, that it goes out of tune after about 5 chords or so, crappy bridge, the Seymour Duncan pickups are the best and the birdseye neck doesn't exectly look like AAA.

[Spudman***]

I had one of the Strats...briefly. Sold it pretty quickly. It just didn't have any mojo going on except for the neck. It felt great! Still I wasn't going to keep it just for that. So off it went.

When I first found out about the Lite Ash series a friend who works in the music store I frequent was playing the Lite Ash Telecaster trying to decide if to buy it. He made it sound really good. Then I played it. It still sounded really good. I'm not sure if it was just one of the good Teles in an ocean of bad Teles or not. That one was a smoker. I've never seen any others to try since then.

Lite Ash Strat? Nah. Nicht fur mich.

[Iago]

Thats exacly what I felt... played 3 of those Lite Ash Teles in different stores and none of them were as good as a Standard! And it wasn`t all that "lite" as the name says...

[tot_Ou_tard]

Thanks for all the help everyone!

[player***]

that is odd,even G&L guitars have something on the headstock

[Adrian30]

Are they MIK?

[TS808]

I had a Fender FMT Tele Deluxe that was made in Korea and had two Duncan humbuckers. Gorgeous guitar....the headstock also just said "Fender"...no mention of it being a telecaster on the headstock.

[Bloozcat]

I had a Fender FMT Tele Deluxe that was made in Korea and had two Duncan humbuckers. Gorgeous guitar....the headstock also just said "Fender"...no mention of it being a telecaster on the headstock.

It's my understanding that the MIK Fenders are the ones with just "Fender" on the face of the headstock. I don't know if there are any others like that or not.

[marnold***]

It's my understanding that the MIK Fenders are the ones with just "Fender" on the face of the headstock. I don't know if there are any others like that or not.

Dunno if that's true in general or not but my MIK Fender just says "Fender" on the headstock. It's a Showmaster and therefore not "technically" a Strat. But that's what it is nevertheless.

[Brian Krashpad]

Dunno if that's true in general or not but my MIK Fender just says "Fender" on the headstock. It's a Showmaster and therefore not "technically" a Strat. But that's what it is nevertheless.

My guess is that Fender doesn't put "Stratocaster" or "Telecaster" on the super-modernized versions that have little in common with the trad designs other than the outline of the body shape. The target market for those guitars doesn't really care about trad Strats and Teles (especially Teles, which are often thought of as "old-fashioned" or "country" guitars), and conversely some of the hardcore trad people don't like seeing such modern "abominations" being labelled with their fave guitars' names. By not putting Strat and Tele on the headstocks of those models, Fender has a win-win.