MIJ JAPANESE FENDER STRATOCASTER ST62-US

Hello everyone, I've been very fortunate to acquire this new guitar made in Japan. It's called Fender Stratocaster ST62-US which is basically a Reissue of Fender Stratocaster 1962. I'm very blessed to be able to acquire this guitar since it's considered a hidden jewel. MIJ Stratocasters are known for their fantastic built quality and consistency and sometimes can rival US version of the same type of guitar.

Spec
The body was made of basswood(cheap wood to be honest, but resonates very good and considered as one of the best tonewood). The color is 3 tone sunburst with white pickguard. The pickups are called US Vintage pickups according to Fender Japan. Neck is maple with very high gloss and rosewood fingerboard with small radius and vintage sized frets. It comes with vintage 6 screws tremolo and vintage style tuner. No trust rod adjustment on the headstock; the adjustment can be made from the heel of the neck on the pickguard. No skunk stripe on the back of the neck too. It's made to the spec of a '62 Stratocaster except for the body material; a true '62 Strat will have alder for the body instead of basswood.

Sound
AMAZING! It resonates acoustically stronger than most of my guitars. The tone when it's plugged into an amp is also nice. Good clean tones come instantly without too much tweak. The pickups are very weak so I adjust them closer to the string just a little bit. Overdrive tones are not as strong as my other guitars but I like to keep it that way. The basswood body adds extra mid to the overall tone while the rosewood fingerboard definitely keeps the presence and brightness from being drowned by the basswood body.

The neck and bridge pickup definitely sounds very vintage; they are called US Vintage Pickups according to Fender Japan website. Try to play some Hendrix tune with this guitar and you'll get the idea. The bridge has a bigger block compared to my MIM Stratocaster and it helps a bit with the sustain.

Any cons?
Basswood body is considered cheap by many people, but it's actually considered as a good tone wood. Pickups are a bit weak but they sound very vintage, so if you don't like weak output pickups, better upgrade the pickups with something stronger. However, the pickups are made of alnico, and they are definitely better than ceramic pickups on the MIM but maybe not as good as American Standard alnico pickups.

Made In Japan
MIJ guitars have the reputation of beating MIA guitars in terms of consistencies and built quality. MIJ are very consistent, the people who make them are doing their job neatly and carefully. US made guitars sometimes suffer from inconsistencies in terms of overall quality. For the same type of guitar, you can sometimes get a very good guitar but sometimes not.

Is this guitar for me?

If you love Stratocaster, MIJ is a must have. One guy from a forum told me that this guitar beats the Custom Shop version of '62 Reissue, so I'm quite happy to know that the quality of this MIJ guitar will hold for a long time. If you're not a Strat guy, definitely worth to check out. Stratocasters are very nice guitars and they define the American tone from a very long time. Especially with this MIJ, you'll get the best value guitar that will beat some of more expensive guitars on US market.

Price?
68000 Yen or around US$860. Quite expensive, but this will beat US Vintage Reissue and Custom Shop '62 Reissue.

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11.

Hope you like this post. I'll post some sound clips soon.
Cheers and God Bless :)