Charcoal Frost has landed in UK

[Marc]

https://www.coda-music.com/fender-custo ... 16402.html

Even though the URL says sunburst.

[sunburster]

Such a beauty! Matching headstock too. Shame about the 10" radius and medium-jumbo frets though.

[Venice Lockjaw]

Damn. What a color.

[eggwheat]

I see Fender still can't get tortoiseshell right

[N0_Camping4U]

Eh.. honestly not that impressed. I really dislike the ultra pale necks, and weak tortoise shell. I don't like how blue modern CFM is, either.

[BoringPostcards]

OH GOD! I have no words. CFM has long been a top 3 finish of mine.
I have no idea if the new CFM is different from the original, because all the originals I've seen were yellowed, faded or beat to shit.

[N0_Camping4U]

Vintage examples in the catalog have been posted before and they're definitely not nearly as blue as this. Nothing wrong with that, I just kind of think it should be a different name. Some modern charcoal frost you see is gun metal gray... some is nearly black... some are blue. It's weird how Fender cannot match their own colors. Firemist Silver and Teal Green Metallic also come to mind.

I LOVE the green'd out charcoal frost, however.

Am I the only one who is not a fan of super pale necks?

[Miro]

Am I the only one who is not a fan of super pale necks?

Me too. I noticed that all modern American Fenders have light necks. Is it such a fashion or is there no dark lacquer in Fender?

[Despot]

The yellow tint in the neck finish goes back to when Fender released vintage reissues and wanted to replicate the effect of decades of yellowed clear coat.

I'm not sure whether or not a telecaster released in 1952 had a pale neck, or whether there was any tint to the clear coat applied - the cleanest example I have to hand is a '67 Jaguar that has seen very little wear - and while the neck has yellowed (you can see it on the binding), it's a lot less than my Tele ('66 and well worn/used), which is a dark amber colour where there's any lacquer left on the neck.

I imagine that if Fender CS are releasing a guitar as NOS they're deliberately not putting any tint in the lacquer in order to try to replicate a new guitar from whatever year they're trying to replicate.

As for American Professionals or other models? I've no clue. I know that when Fender released the American Vintage line they made a conscious decision not to yellow the clear coat on the neck - which is most obvious on the '52 Tele reissue, when you compare the old '52 AVRI to the '52 AV, the two most obvious differences are the body (clear yellow lacquer showing the grain on the AVRI versus semi-opaque not showing the grain at all really on the AV), and the neck (heavy tint on the AVRI and no tint on the AV).

[sunburster]

I love the pale "natural" necks of the recent AV line. I'll take them over the fake tan AVRI necks any day. Let them age naturally, I say!

With that said, I have two AVRI 62s with fake tan necks and love them DESPITE their neck tint. But whenever I pick up my AV65 Jag and gaze down upon that white maple neck I feel all sorts of joy in my heart -- it never fails to put a smile on my face.

[markblack77]

not keen on the matching headstock but I like it.

[MechaBulletBill]

man, sometimes I forget how much some guitars cost.

[Embenny]

man, sometimes I forget how much some guitars cost.

There is no shortage of people willing to take your money. Name literally any amount of money, and you will find someone selling a guitar at that price point.

Having said that, at this price, I cannot believe that the Custom Shop hasn't heard of Spitfire, or hired somebody to similarly recreate tort instead of using the same off-the-shelf hideousness they put on VM Squiers. I can accept that vintage tort is hard to replicate, so using the cheap imitations on lower-priced guitars seems inevitable...but to put THAT guard on such an otherwise smoking-hot CS guitar makes no sense to me at all...

[jdr1014]

I would love to own that one!

I know there are lots of tort lovers (including me, on a few colors), but I prefer a proper shade mint guard on CFM. After a couple years of light exposure, I would expect that pale neck to be noticeably darker.