Korean Made Fender Telecaster??

[TuckerKline]

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HI! I've Been wondering for a long time if korean made teles are real. Are they fakes?? i have my wonderful sounding lite ash with duncs in it and i love it. Im just wondering if these are good quality at all?
my serial number is 04123279, anybody know how old mine is??

thanks so much

 

[Lerb21]

HI! I've Been wondering for a long time if korean made teles are real. Are they fakes?? i have my wonderful sounding lite ash with duncs in it and i love it. Im just wondering if these are good quality at all?
my serial number is 04123279, anybody know how old mine is??

thanks so much

They are legit, and pretty good guitar. My first Tele was a 2005 MIK Lite Ash Telecaster.

I didn't dig the stock pickups too much, but other than that it's a great guitar.

 

[TuckerKline]

This is my neck of my korean fender tele, just wondering if the quality is good. or if this guitar is real!

 

[HOBBSTER01]

These guitars usually get snubbed by the Tele MIA snobs but they are one of the best kept secrets in the lineup.
Great necks and the pups sound very good as well.

 

[neocaster]

Lite Ash and Koa (Tele and Strat) are nice MIK guitars. From what I've seen and heard, the veneer on the koa guitars holds up beautifully.

 

[TuckerKline]

@hobbster01 what do you mean? "get snubbed by the Tele MIA snobs"

 

[TuckerKline]

what do u mean "get snubbed by the Tele MIA snobs"

 

[Post Toastie]

They are legit. Just go to the Fender web site and they are on it.

 

[Lerb21]

They are legit. Just go to the Fender web site and they are on it.

I believe that they've been discontinued, so it might be harder to find them there.

 

[Custom Deluxe]

I believe that they've been discontinued, so it might be harder to find them there.

Yes they are discontinued. If you call the Fender help line, they'll date it for you.

Love the headstock decal.

 

[playcaster]

I always wanted one those new in vintage blonde. I still cannot find it used.

 

[lckyjcky]

It looks bad, it's a fake, it's a cheap knock-off. Now, may I have it?

 

[Burlington Dave]

I LOVE my Lite Ash Tele!! I also have a 1983 Alder American Standard that I bought in 1991 and the LAT holds up with it!! Granted, it''s very different, the unfinished neck is not to everyone's liking, but the build quality is fantastic and at less than 1/2 the price of a new American you can have TWO and put a Bigsby on the second one! I use both on stage with my band all the time, and the ash body/seymour duncan PU combination on the LAT has much more snap, snarl and growl than the '83, great for rockabilly and 1950's rock, then switch to the middle and roll back the treble and you get a beautiful, versatile sound that's great for Soul and Classic Rock rhythm sounds. I love them both and would wholeheartedly recommend the LAT. Like any guitar though, make sure you play it first, there are gems and duds in every guitar line. I took a chance on ebay last summer and got a gem from a guy in Texas - 2 piece ash body, everything perfect - for $375 USD plus shipping. It ended up being $440 CDN. I'd love to find a second one with the black body and Bigsby it!!

Good luck in your search.

 

[boris bubbanov]

It looks bad, it's a fake, it's a cheap knock-off. Now, may I have it?

Sure , they can be good guitars.

What did Yogi Berra say: "I came to a fork in the road, and I took it".

I have encountered a few too many duds in this model line, plus a MIK Lite Ash Strat that weighed enough to give any man a hernia, but the main thing was:

Every small detail I was absorbed in, about Nocasters and Broadcasters, etc., they got wrong;

The pickups are very high quality; they're just not really the sound I was ever looking for;

There's some quirky differences where you cannot part these out and use the pieces readily on MIA and MIM based (or Allparts or USACG based) partscasters. The 22nd fret overhang is real thick; the pickguard is modded to address that and then the body chamfer is real aggressive but not exactly accurate of the 1974 era Telecasters, either.

In summary: A bunch of small but fuss-budgety details and traits that aggravate the heck out of me. But if you lived in a cabin and had some power, a good amp and this guitar, you maybe could care less.

 

[Krijn]

Recently I have purchased this exact guitar. Great instrument, well built in the usa tradition as it seems, beautiful finish (which I am going to relic down a tad bit) and a great set of SD pickups. The only cons are the ugly looking green pearl dot markers (replace with blacks immediately) and the eight-hole instead of the vintage five-hole (which is nicely done on the Squier 50's Classic Vibe, which is also a very good guitar) scratchplate. For the price? Go get it!

 

[Five-O]

I've heard that their pretty nice guitars too. First thing though, replace that awful looking Fender logo on the headstock. Can't understand why Fender authorized it, looks nothing like a traditonal Fender logo..

 

[Polish John]

excellent guitars, especially for the price they go for these days.

 

[Jack Wells]

Yours is one of the early Lite Ash Telecasters .......... probably first or second year based on the headstock decal. Later models had more of a '50s style decal.

 

[Alamo]

Later models had more of a '50s style decal.

yes, like this. I also put some Kluson style tuners on mine.

The only cons are the ugly looking green pearl dot markers (replace with blacks immediately)

I've been thinking about that too. I don't care for those abalone dots.
on the other hand - I'm slightly afraid to mess up the fretboard.
will you post some pics when you're replacing the dots, Krijn?

 

[boris bubbanov]

Those tuners look great on there!

Which conversion bushings did you need, the 10.0mm or the 10.5 mm ones?


Much obliged.

BTW, the markers look fine to me. The tuners really do give the headstock a different vibe which I don't mind at all. The natural bone color of the premium maple really disguises the ambering difference in the finish color under the old tuner washers; keep it in the sun a little and that trace will be 100% gone by the end of the year.