Late 70's Strats??

[stringtree]

I got my 79 brand new at GC Fall of 1980. $400 w/ohsc

Remember when guitars came with their cases..... I liked those days!

 

[slide222]

my 78 strat had 4 bolts , I know cause I learnt loads with that guitar , putting a tele neck on it , painting the body, and eventually I changed pickups to Seymore Duncan and swopped it for a tele, and that's how I kept the 78 level coil pickups and in the neck position or the middle or even better (my favourite position)inbetween the two they sound great, and this guitar came with a decent case that I still have

 

[Wildeman]

my 78 strat had 4 bolts , I know cause I learnt loads with that guitar , putting a tele neck on it , painting the body, and eventually I changed pickups to Seymore Duncan and swopped it for a tele, and that's how I kept the 78 level coil pickups and in the neck position or the middle or even better (my favourite position)inbetween the two they sound great, and this guitar came with a decent case that I still have

If it did from the factory it would have been a '79 25th anniversary model. Pix?

 

[Adieu]

Related thoughts to ponder: the vintage market, and the aftermarket/upgrade industry.

In the '50s and '60s, old Fenders and Gibsons were just "used guitars". In '69, you could buy a mint '54 Strat for less than a brand new one.

You could buy a Bigsby, or a De'Armond clip-on pickup to turn your acoustic into an electric, or Grover Rotomatic tuners. That was about it for aftermarket items.

Bill Lawrence started making replacement pickups in the mid '60s, but that was a really small business. We only know about it because it was the earliest precursor of an industry that was about to blossom.

Elderly opened in '72. The Guitar Trader in RedBank NJ opened around then. A brand new Les Paul Deluxe was something like $600. But Guitar Trader's 73 quarterly price lists had '59 bursts at $3K.

Gas was $0.25/gallon. The average new car was under $3K. I had a $100 Penco/Ibanez SG. The idea of a $3,000 guitar blew my little mind.

Duncan and DiMarzio set up shop, and their pickups sold like McDonalds hamburgers. CBS and Norlin were giving us their idea of how "modern" pickups should sound, and they didn't satisfy the people who wanted vintage tone, nor the people who wanted hotrodded tone. So Duncan gave us the SLS1 and the Quarter Pound, the '59 and the JB. DiMarzio's PAF and Super Distortion.

Schecter and Charvel started making Strat/Tele replacement parts, and within a few years you could build a partscaster entirely out of aftermarket parts. As mentioned by others, back then we started thinking of '70s Fenders as "mod platforms", as starting points that could be turned into better guitars. (I'll prolly bore y'all someday with a chronical of the crazy shit I did to my '75.)

Part of that is just that the guitar market was continuing to grow, and good ol' American entrepreneurs found niches to exploit.

But they found those niches because CBS and Norlin weren't giving people what they wanted. No player ever asked for a 3-bolt neck. It allowed larger tolerances in production and faster assembly/setup -- it was entirely a cost-cutting feature. Of course the marketing dept sold it as a "feature" -- it lets you make an adjustment (nevermind that after a proper initial setup, it should never need that adjustment). 3-bolt to 4-bolt conversions are common, but have you ever heard of someone converting a 4-bolt to 3-bolts?

When NorlinGibson finally reintroduced the Les Paul, everyone wanted something like the '59 LP Standard.

Nope. Custom with multi binding and block inlays if you wanted humbuckers. LP Deluxe had single binding and trap inlays, but only came with mini-hums. Same rout as P90's, but the factory wouldn't put them in.

(Small, limited run of '68 and '69s with P90's, and a really nice batch of Customs with alnico Staples don't count. Real '54~'56's hadn't exploded in value that early - they were easier to find at about the same price as the early reissues. Basic supply and demand says those reissues weren't the right guitars to reissue at that point in time.)

You can say that the CBS and Norlin era guitars caused/created the vintage market, the upgrade/parts market, and the high end Japanese replicas that started in the late '70s.

(People who love Gibson's Historic series and Fender's Vintage Reissue/Time Machine stuff owe a huge debt to the Japanese, but that's another long post for another time.)

There's been a lot of revisionism, a rehabilitation of the CBS/Norlin era. And that's not incorrect -- in this age where you can get any guitar you want, they're just another set of features/specs. They don't "objectively suck", they aren't terrible crap, they have some unique features (Fender has never made and probably never will make the cast Zamak bridge again, so the Classic'70s and AVRI'70s don't have those -- and no one else makes them).

But the bottom line is that back when they were the only Gibsons and Fenders you could buy, people were dissatisfied enough to inspire several new sub-industries.

And those sub-industries were so successful, CBS and Norlin gave up. Sold the companies. And the new owners revived the companies to new heights of success by dropping just about all of the '70s features.

If CBS/Norlin floats your boat, that's fine. Danelectros, National plastic electrics, Teiscos-- they're sheer and utter crap. But they've made amazing music, and CBS/Norlin are way better than those. Long and storied recording/performance history, used by legendary players in every genre.

Good solid Japanese replicas started in the EARLY 70s though

By the late 70s they were into originals and had high end stuff with prices that rivalled Gibson

 

[slide222]

If it did from the factory it would have been a '79 25th anniversary model. Pix?

well I still have the pickups and they clearly say 78 on the back side, it had a maple neck and wood body with black pick guard , and it was brought from john savage drum/music shop in kingslynn , uk and as I said earlier this guitar left me many many years ago,but I kept the pickups , and it was just a standard strat

 

[Wildeman]

well I still have the pickups and they clearly say 78 on the back side, it had a maple neck and wood body with black pick guard , and it was brought from john savage drum/music shop in kingslynn , uk and as I said earlier this guitar left me many many years ago,but I kept the pickups , and it was just a standard strat

Did it look like this?

 

[slide222]

I just said it was a standard strat with a maple neck and wood body , not painted not special and very standard with 4 bolts holding on the neck

 

[RLW59]

Good solid Japanese replicas started in the EARLY 70s though

By the late 70s they were into originals and had high end stuff with prices that rivalled Gibson

Well, there are a bunch of Japanese companies, with different timelines and different products.

Early/mid '70s Ibanez started copying then-current Gibsons and Fenders. They never ever did vintage replicas. When the American lawyers started sending them letters, they first changed their headstocks, then started making originals.

Greco and Burny started making vintage replicas in the mid '70s, but with inaccuracies like oversize inlays and shallow top carves.

The watershed was '78, with Tokai's "Les Paul Reborn" and "Springy Sound" Strats. The others upped their games shortly thereafter.

The "Golden Age" for MIJ replicas is '78~'85.
----------------------
None of the great MIJ vintage replicas were ever distributed in the US*. So most people think "Ibanez" when they think "70s MIJ". But Ibanez isn't even part of the MIJ Golden Age. Their copies were good, solid guitars -- but they were second-tier in the Japanese hierarchy. (They grew into a top-tier world-class company with their original designs.)
-----------------------
*None of them were distributed under their own names in the US. Fender has sold Fuji-gens and Tokais with Fender decals. Gibson has sold MIJ Elitists.

The Golden Age companies didn't switch to original designs. Some of them have offered a few originals alongside their replicas, but they still building replicas.

 

[AlvisX]

18 yrs old ,1981
Morley wah, chukka boots ,wristwatch, ACE STRAP !!
There's actually a better photo of the guitar around 1992, but my x wife is playin it .....




Re-fin'd 72 body ,which I traded my high school '79 body for ....with Allparts fat neck with my name stamped in the headstock ....THX EVH



FYI, Danelectro was using the tilt neck in '67

 

[RLW59]

I just said it was a standard strat with a maple neck and wood body , not painted not special and very standard with 4 bolts holding on the neck

Please don't get mad about these questions.

Published sources agree with my memory -- the 4-bolt first returned on the '79 25th Anniversary, a year or two later on the regular Strat.

But Fender has always done weird overlaps when changing specs. So it's possible you had a regular '79 4-bolt.

We're just asking because you seem to be implying that it was normal and all '79s were like that. They weren't -- you had something special.
----------------------
And personally, my memory has gotten a bit hazy on guitars that I owned decades ago.

Did my '75 Fender case have red, orange, or gold lining? Damned if I can remember for sure. I know it wasn't black.

I think that '75 had the original neck pocket shape, rather than the modern one that bulges out at the corners. Wouldn't bet money on it though.

I remember it as having staggered poles. Again, wouldn't bet money.

 

[RLW59]

18 yrs old ,1981
Morley wah, chukka boots ,wristwatch, ACE STRAP !!
There's actually a better photo of the guitar around 1992, but my x wife is playin it .....




Re-fin'd 72 body ,which I traded my high school '79 body for ....with Allparts fat neck with my name stamped in the headstock ....THX EVH



FYI, Danelectro was using the tilt neck in '67

But Dano using the tilt-neck is kinda my point. Dano's are all about cheap. That's what makes them charming and cool.

Masonite body and a crude bridge? A neck joint expressly designed to minimize factory assembly time is completely in spirit with that design.

There's a fine line between "more bang for the buck" and "cheapening out".

If CBS had reduced assemble cost by improving their woodcutting and finishing so that fewer of the guitars needed shims, that would have been "more bang for the buck".

But instead, they embraced the suck. Adopted a system used by the lowest end manufacturers to let them get even sloppier with the neck joints. That's "cheapening out".
------------------------------
I'm firm in calling out CBS/Norlin design & build philosophies. Because it wasn't a mass hallucination that gave them their reputation, that gave birth to boutique builders, the aftermarket, the vintage market, and came very close to putting both companies out of business. They truly are Fender's and Gibson's lowest periods. There are good reasons SRV endorsed Tokai and not CBS.

But I'm not calling them crappy guitars. They're Gibsons and Fenders. They're still top-tier guitars. And if something about them calls to you, they're perfectly valid choices.

 

[Adieu]

Well, there are a bunch of Japanese companies, with different timelines and different products.

Early/mid '70s Ibanez started copying then-current Gibsons and Fenders. They never ever did vintage replicas. When the American lawyers started sending them letters, they first changed their headstocks, then started making originals.

Greco and Burny started making vintage replicas in the mid '70s, but with inaccuracies like oversize inlays and shallow top carves.

The watershed was '78, with Tokai's "Les Paul Reborn" and "Springy Sound" Strats. The others upped their games shortly thereafter.

The "Golden Age" for MIJ replicas is '78~'85.
----------------------
None of the great MIJ vintage replicas were ever distributed in the US*. So most people think "Ibanez" when they think "70s MIJ". But Ibanez isn't even part of the MIJ Golden Age. Their copies were good, solid guitars -- but they were second-tier in the Japanese hierarchy. (They grew into a top-tier world-class company with their original designs.)
-----------------------
*None of them were distributed under their own names in the US. Fender has sold Fuji-gens and Tokais with Fender decals. Gibson has sold MIJ Elitists.

The Golden Age companies didn't switch to original designs. Some of them have offered a few originals alongside their replicas, but they still building replicas.

Pssst.... Greco = Ibanez (=Antoria = Westminster etc), they shared a catalog of F&G replicas and derivatives from the early 70s --- the so-called "lawsuit guitars" --- until Ibanez rolled out their own originals and started investing heavily in brand building in the late 70s early 80s

 

[Wildeman]

I just said it was a standard strat with a maple neck and wood body , not painted not special and very standard with 4 bolts holding on the neck

Believe it or not ALL Strats have "maple necks and wood bodies". This is lame....bye bye.

 

[slide222]

wood bodies means no paint , and maple neck is also an unpainted wooden part , but I am really sorry if my first usa strat wasn't according to your specs ,plz do not insult me , if you can't be nice don't be anything, and wildeman ,you have become very annoying

 

[ido1957]

78 Hardtail - pretty heavy compared to my EC. It still holds it own.

 

[anitoli]

This pic is from an ebay listing, suddenly i have no concern how many bolts are in this thing

 

[jimmyjames]

There's a G-string missing, talk about shoddy!

 

[RLW59]

wood bodies means no paint , and maple neck is also an unpainted wooden part , but I am really sorry if my first usa strat wasn't according to your specs ,plz do not insult me , if you can't be nice don't be anything, and wildeman ,you have become very annoying

Double checked. My main reference says that the 25th Anniversary was the first return of the 4-bolt, but "BY 1980 all Strats got the 4-bolt".

Which implies that it was phased in sometime during mid/late '79.

So your guitar wouldn't have been some freaky oddity. Nor super rare, but not common either, and pretty special -- one of the first.

 

[stringbender11]

I agree with the people that think the CBS Strats were mostly junk. I had a '79 (3 bolt neck) for a while and it was HEAVY, and fit and finish were pretty poor, honestly. In fact all the other ones I've seen from that era at 2nd hand shops have been the same way.
Modern Strats absolutely blow those CBS versions away, imo. Sh*t a nice Squier these days is much better made and sounds a whole lot better than those late 70's versions. I'd bet the only really high quality guitars Fender made back then were the ones they gave to rock star types who endorsed them..

 

[Deep Purple fan]

Great thread

I had a 1979 and 1974. Great guitars but I like my 2006 American Standard and all three Custom Shop strats a lot better.

The 79 was a heavy guitar. It’s heavier than my Les Paul Custom. It was a good guitar that got the job done. Tones were typical strat. But I never had a guitar- orgasm. It was pro grade but not a stand out. It was black with a white pickguard. All original.

The 74 was a former battle horse. Mojo on steroids. I could still smell the smoke from bars in the wood. This one was Tobacco Sunburst. All original minus middle pickup. Again, great guitar but not nearly as good as my others.

Vintage strats are a tricky buy. Much more challenging than a vintage Les Paul. So many of them have had parts swapped, necks changed, mods, dumb mods - that it’s tricky. I’ve been really happy with the Custom Shop strats which play at least 100 % better than the vintage guitars I’ve played. Al the American standards and American vintage reissues are fabulous specimens. My number one inspiration, Blackmore, made iconic tunes and blew the roof of many arenas with 70s
strats. If something inspires you grab it but buying a vintage strat is something I would be very cautious about.