Korea!
It's a '97 Squier pro tone stratocaster!
The story of the pro tone series is known to a lot of people. It was a Korean made series for Squier with high quality parts and dito craftmanship. They were sold at the same price as Mexican Strats, and being 'only' a Squier therefore didn't sell very well. For this reason, and because of the fact Fender got aware of the quality of these Strats en Tele's (and P-basses), the series was discontinued after a little more than a year.
I had a trans blue pro tone strat some years ago, but it somehow didn't hold its tuning and I traded it for another guitar.
Nowerdays, I know how to work on a strats tremolo, and they (yes, they!) hold their tunings very well.
A month or so ago I noticed another trans blue in the local 2nd hand forum.
I reacted instantly and got it for 250 euro, including a guitar stand and a gig-bag.
It hadn't seen a lot of use, being 21 years old.
once set up correctly (why do almost all people play with too high action and never touch there truss-rods!!!) it played excellent and the neck was fine, except for one fret that buzzed, wich was corrected by a guitar-tech (it had received an inpact and was dented a bit).
In fact, it played so well that I almost sold my AV '64 telecaster to make room for a few other guitars of thye pro tone series.
Luckily this didn't happen! (yet!
)Long story shorter, I found myself lusting for more pro tones (there's the trans red with rosewood board, the white one matching headstock and the ... BLONDE!/ ignoring the Fat strat with a floyd rose)
I than became obsessed with only the blonde strat, almost pulled the trigger on a blonde one in the UK for way too much (or actually still not enough for the quality they're representing).
Than , last week, I found a blonde one on the local 2nd hand website.
The guy was asking 350; I made a 300 bid and he accepted.
Now this new strat compared to my first one was still something else! It had a lot more character and a more transparant sound.
Unfortuanally, the neck had a couple of bad frets with buzzes.
In the meantime, I fixed these buzzes by dressing the faultive frets.
I couldn't help but try to swap the neck out of curiosity and in fact, both guitars benefit from this.
The blond one retains its open character and combines this with a chrystal clear sounding neck.
The trans bleu one with its warmer neck sound got a warm, but somehow a slightly less 'open' sound.
As a consequence, the blonde one now has gold tuners and the trans blue one got the silver ones that are one the other neck.
Because the gold tuners look fresher, I'm gonna leave them this way.
pics!
the blue:
the blonde:
I'm digging the blonde more; both in sound and looks!
The pickguard isn't the original one, wich is a pity.
the one on the back is.
The body is differently shaped in both guitars. It's the neckjoint-area where the blonde one copies an older design. Not a strat-specialist, but I know this is the case with Jazzmasters.
overall, the hardware quality on ythe blonde seems a notch up. It has a full steel trem block, for instance, where the trans blue has a smaller, alloy one. The bridge is slightly different too, the blonde's one having a wider saddle-placement and of slightly different form.
some more pics/ tired of writing.
the blonde one must be the best strat I've had (including AV '62 and american deluxe)...for ...300 Euro! There's just something about this instrument that is all a strat should be, or could be.
The comparisson with my friends cunetto is not exagerrated. It really is a very special instrument. My friend was totally overwhelmed and couldn't believe he held a Korean Squier!
cheers
Tom
