Holy Moly - here's one for discussion.

[God of Thunder]

I don't post here much as I had to get rid of my AVRI - but I always look. Today, this beauty comes up on Guitar Center's website. I can't even begin to wonder what happened here. First - the low E tuner has been replaced - with what I think is something banjo related? Next - the paint job. Wow. Sunburst back, and almost a sanded down front. The neck though - this one has me. It's got 22 frets, but look at the neck heel on the back. It goes way up the next before it radiuses around. Admittedly - it may be an optical illusion. I've never seen one like this! I think its some kind of a partscaster

 

[Deeve]

Banjo tuner for those dramatic low E tune-drops - think Junior Brown?

 

[corliss1]

Whatever it was, it isn't any more. That neck doesn't look like anything that came out of a Fender factory.

 

[LowCaster]

Three string trees!

Neck is not Fender, as for the rest… maybe one of the string trees is original, I wouldn’t expect more.

 

[God of Thunder]

Whatever it was, it isn't any more. That neck doesn't look like anything that came out of a Fender factory.

It was $399. Lots of mojo with it for sure

 

[kuch]

Frankentele....

 

[Fretting out]

Banjo tuner for those dramatic low E tune-drops - think Junior Brown?

They have the concept right but the wrong tuner, the tuners used for those tuning drops have stopping points so you go down to an exact pitch and back up into tune without having to find the note


I guess if you are really good you can get it right back without special tuners/fiddling around, people do it on regular teles, but at that point the banjo tuner doesn’t make a difference other than where the peg is at

 

[dougstrum]

Looks funky to me

 

[archetype]

Looks like an artificially aged partscaster to me. The back of the neck is light and not dirty, but the rest of the neck is funky. They got it backwards: the back of the neck should be darkened. Check out the truss rod hole vs. that headstock decal. That doesn't look like a Fender neck to me.

 

[jvin248]

.

It's a good one to take to those shadier greasy bar gigs.



.

 

[Peegoo]

The only Fender thing on there is the fake headstock decal. It looks to be someone's 'relic' project using Cheepo Chender parts. I like how they used the very early and little-known Leo Fender idea of putting three string trees on the headstock

Even if it plays and sounds great, it's worth maybe $100-$150.

 

[BatUtilityBelt]

Based on the finish, it looks like the body started out as a MIM Fender telecaster. I would guess it met some sort of accident that damaged the top and/or neck. Perhaps it was parted out. Someone stripped the top but left the back finish intact. The neck was swapped for a non-Fender neck, there are many tells of that. Someone decided it was a good idea to put a Fender water slide decal on the front (they're easy), and parts changes probably occurred because of lack of original parts after it was parted out earlier.

 

[Beachbum]

This one doesn't even deserve any speculation. Just plain crap on a stick.

 

[user name]

Looks like somebody played the hell out of that thing. That usually means it's a pretty good guitar.
Maybe it's not a real Fender, and maybe it has some weird stuff happening, but it might be a real player

 

[Blue Bill]

 

[bottlenecker]

They have the concept right but the wrong tuner, the tuners used for those tuning drops have stopping points so you go down to an exact pitch and back up into tune without having to find the note
View attachment 1047056

I guess if you are really good you can get it right back without special tuners/fiddling around, people do it on regular teles, but at that point the banjo tuner doesn’t make a difference other than where the peg is at

I don't know about stops, but people must have used banjo tuners before they had that trick. The planetary gearing is a big advantage for playing the tuner. It's a very different ratio.

 

[blue metalflake]

A complete dog’s breakfast

 

[Fretting out]

I don't know about stops, but people must have used banjo tuners before they had that trick. The planetary gearing is a big advantage for playing the tuner. It's a very different ratio.

Earl Scruggs was the first I know of who incorporated it into a song musically

He had d-tuners like this on his banjo which I believe he invented

You could adjust how far you wanted to bend by putting those screws in the middle out

The other style I showed are “Keith style” d-tuners invented some time in the mid 60’s

Clarence white had Keith tuners on his telecaster, being from a bluegrass background I’m sure he discovered them through banjo pickers

Kind of irrelevant to the Chinese partscaster just interesting

 

[Dukex]

Looks like somebody played the hell out of that thing. That usually means it's a pretty good guitar.
Maybe it's not a real Fender, and maybe it has some weird stuff happening, but it might be a real player

Agreed. I expect that's the case.

 

[StevesBoogie]

Not sure why, but that thing grew on me the more I looked at it. The 'Gypsy' engraving is cool. I actually tried to find it on GC but could not locate it. It should scream 'awful Partscaster, beware!' to me, but it actually has some great personality.