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And just while I'm being cross. Why won't bloody gibson reissue a proper SG jr based on 61-63ish spec. Oh they made the one that has the wrong neckjoint and the wrong controls...no doubt an 'improvement' ... And made me particularly fucked off. I don't want that. I'm not going to do a warranty return if I stand on my cable and split the body at the jack socket. I'm so cross about it, I mean they done all the other jrs... At least to some extent. Why not one of the best of the bunch. I would imagine they would be cost effective to make, and a decent margin per instrument. But obviously that's too much like common sense, what we need is some more stupid ill conceived crap to fill up their website. Go away.

What ever will FMIC come up with next... I mean there are only 900 models of strat you can chose from today. 800 tele's, and now some silly old shite that was never any good in the first place. I might sack my current career off to join them and sort this shit out. ..and they binned Hamer? For fucks sake.

I believe my dad would venture... "They were shit then, and they'll be shit now"

Yeah, they're revolutionary! I remember as a kid, when the Starcaster was featured in those Fender "bedtime stories" series of ads in the mid '70's, in Guitar Player magazine, usually prominently positioned on the back cover, IIRC. I thought they looked cool back then. I'd be interested in these new ones, if the build quality is good. Are these Chinese made? Indonesia? The Coronado never caught my interest, I always thought the curved end of the neck (where it joins the body) reminded me a LOT of early ('60's, '70's) import guitars, and I wasn't impressed. I think the original pickups were DeArmonds, though?

Fidel-trons, Cuba's gift to the guitar community!

Speaking of guitar builders who's names we're never quite sure should be pronounced with a short or a long "a"... Dennis Fano's making waves with these right now: Fender probably think they can win back a piece of their pie. (Not)

(Hello kitty squier strat excluded naturally from my righteous rant. I want one of those)

Yeah, gin and tonic made me ditch my mild mannered and measured Brit persona and get stuck in to what's wrong with the big music corps. And to be fair, let them get on with it. I don't go to other forums to post things, no point...because I wouldn't last. I'm not going to be a sycophant to the big boy brands. It's getting to the point where the genius of the classic designs are just getting diluted to fit any perceived demographic. Even if some really great individual instruments come out of them. I don't reckon that much has got better since maybe 1993 for those boys, save the uber expensive custom shop stuff. Granted 200 quid buys you a better new guitar that I could ever buy when I was starting out, and that's admirable, but regarding product development? Bollocks, largely, in my educated and valuable opinion

Well YOU'RE a cranky bastard tonight, eh?

There ya go...I think these are squarely aimed for the girlfriend-jeaned, stingy-brimmed hipster crowd. I STILL like the Starcaster, but that's only because I remember them when they were new in the '70's! I'll have to see what happens when I physically hold and play one, because I was never able to do that with the original version. Interesting that Fender didn't use the string-thru hardtail design of the original '70's Starcaster, and went for a Gibson-style TOM bridge instead.

Exactly. Nobody wanted those things 35-45 years ago...I can't see them being worth selling now. Once the 0.000000000000013125% of the quirky guitar fans buy one and then complain about how they aren't as cool and lack the "mojo" of the originals, they'll be either collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere, or destined for a date with the bandsaw, like the Gibson "Hendrix" catastrophe.

Botched marketing opportunity? Seems FMIC was destined to acquire Hamer.

I always thought the curved end of the neck (where it joins the body) reminded me a LOT of early ('60's, '70's) import guitars And the curved end of the Starcaster headstock reminds me a lot of a penis! :-) A smile after saying that probably isn't fitting...lol

Yeah, I always felt that if these damn customers would just leave me alone I could run my business!

Fender's answer to the question nobody was asking. Reissue the Coronado? Methinks their proximity to Mexico has Fender execs making smoke-induced decisions. Coronados, even clean original vintage examples, are still very cheap. Why? Because they were awful!! There's a hipster cult around the Starcaster, but I've never played a decent one and the ones I have were remarkably heavy.