It's a Mexican Standard. It was discontinued in 2018 and replaced by the Player, with a change in logo, the F neckplate, two screw tremolo and alnico pickups. If you got Pure Vintage pickups you got a good deal!

Those tuners are better and I prefer those pickups. Basically you got an upgraded Standard model.

Interesting journey! It seems with all the readily available upgrades for Fender's, it would be pretty hard to get the provenance for any of them. If it feels good and sounds good and is in the right price range for you? What the hey? 👍

I had a 1993 Mexican that i learned on. I had to pawn it for $125 in 96 to pay bills. Man i miss that one, it was really nice

I bought a 2012 MIM Standard upgraded much like yours. However, I think maybe done before Fender sold the loaded pickguard as a kit. Mine was essentially upgraded with a Fat 50s pickguard aged and trem block, bone nut and vintage tuners. But seller gave me all the genuine fender parts cardboard packaging and invoices from shops that did all the work including the bone nut and setup. I bought the guitar for less than the loaded pickguard and bone nut invoices . It also happens to be my “thoughtless” first grab guitar, over any American or otherwise guitars. It rules.

If it's worth anything, my 2004 Classic Series 50s has a blank neck plate. What strikes me as odd on yours is the combination of truss rod adjustment at the headstock, small headstock AND 21 frets. I'll be honest, that one's new to me as I've seen Strats with only two of those, not all three. I've always seen classic style Strats as 21 fret and more modern style ones with that 22nd fret. At least you were able to identify what yours is

I always call Fender because they have more info than you can look up online. I got a telly that was supposed to be a baritone and someone had replaced the neck with an affinity neck and they told me right away what color it was supposed to be what kind of make it was they knew everything about the Guitar and for me to find out, it was a fake.

Hey Jayce, loved this video and really enjoyed the previous one. As a novice player who once had the exact same feeling as you had with your Martin (mine was a £1500 Guild) I can very much relate :) Anyway, fast forward a few years and I am thinking of picking up a Fender - maybe MIM - and noticed a few videos talking about the noise a single coil makes when on 'standby' so to speak. Is that something you've wrestled with?

Well I will throw my personal opinion in here, if the guitar feels and sounds good to you, then cool, no amount of badging is going to replace sound, and feel. If you want an example from the late 70 and 80s , Eddie Van Halen, it was not a fender neck not a fender body, the electrical parts might have had a fender part here or there but, in all honesty and in his own words it was not a fender, it truly was a strat like parts caster, and yes we are talking about Frankenstein or some know it as the frankenstrat. He put something together that in his words was probably a mistake but turned out to be what he wanted, so no logos mean little to a player but sound and feel are king. A personal short example, I put a 94$ guitar pick ups in my 120 dollar strat like axe, just because I liked how the cheaper pickups sounded after all the upgrades and modding I have a sweet sounding axe for much less than a USA fender and a lot of Mexican fenders. Name matters not, feel and sound again are king.

PLAYER SERIES SPECIAL RUN WITH UPGRADED BLOCK AND IT CAME WITH FENDER PLAYER SERIES ALNICO PICKUPS BUT YOURS ARE UPGRADED AS WELL AND SOME COME WITH A F STAMPED BACK PLATE SOME DO NOT. IF IT IS A RE ISSUE IT WILL NOT HAVE THE F IF IT IS PERIOD CORRECT. FENDER PING STYLE TUNERS. AWESOME FIND

The black letter Fender logo was the easiest clue to spot immediately telling you it's an MIM Strat.

Once I bought an "Yngwie Malmsteen" pre-wired pickguard. The box was legit and fully wrapped in plastic, and the picture on the instructions matched the pickguard. I spent $389 on the pickguard and thought I was super special. I loved the sound of the pickups and the great wiring job. Fast forward to when Sam Ash closed, and they were selling a MIM Player for a ridiculous $550. Normally it was $889, so I jumped on it. Plus, I happened to have a ton of parts for upgrades on hand. Anyway, I liked the Malmsteen pickguard and was going to toss the MIM pickguard and all the parts on it. So, I took it off to do so... The stock pickguard on the MIM was exactly the same as my $389 "Malmsteen" pickups, electronics, pots, everything. I'm talking the same part numbers, even the same handwriting on the pickups. What are the chances? It looked like literally the same guy did both pickguards. Even the SKU on the pickguard was the same. My $389 "Malmsteen" pre-wired pickguard upgrade was nothing but a standard stock pickguard they throw in a standard MIM Player... Wow, did I munch a sandwich of marketing bullshit on that one. But I had to admit, I loved the pickups and the way they sounded when I thought they were expensive. Totally caught myself being a price dick. In reality, I love the MIM standard pickups. Who'd have known? Funny thing, if you buy the next guitar up, the base "American Pro," I kid you not, it's actually got worse parts for twice the cash, haha. Marketing bullshit. Oh well... admitted.. I was fooled.

You would have thought by now Fender would have incorporated some sort of tech on the model to authenticate the guitars!

Interesting video Jayce! Nicely done. Looks like you actually got a "better deal" than initially thought.

Hi Jayce, I don't currently play guitar. My question is, can a buyer check the serial number at a store or even if buying privately before completing the transaction?

Is it ‘new’ or ‘used’? If it’s used you expect someone may upgrade the trem block for sustain. Pretty nice guitar.

One of my favourite mim squier series strats was a great guitar. There has been all different additions by fender over the years. I wouldn't get too hung up on wether it's a parts caster anyway, if it's all genuine parts then it's a genuine fender, the strat parts were designed by leo in a way to be able to swap out parts, genius for the time really. Do a bit of digging into the history of David gilmores black strat and you'll learn it's been moded so much it too is a partscaster, it's just worth a lot because of who owns and plays it. Now fender only put made in corona california on the headstock due to the state laws specifying that if its not fully made in one place then it cant be clased as made in USA

🤫Do you like it dose it play well sound good , feel comfortable . If you can answer yes to all…worries over now get on and enjoy !!

You got a Hot Rod , why complain , all the hard work has been done ... Enjoy it ...

In the video you say this isn't a partscaster. It is. Just because the body and neck came from the same guitar, doesn't mean this isn't a partscaster. It definitely is. But being this is an mx strat, it doesn't hurt the value. But if this was a mij or American, it would.

I got my MIJ for a good deal on reverb, it's a Final Fantasy 14 guitar. I'd be worried it was a fake if it wasn't way too unique 😆. I don't think anyone would take the time to fake one of those with the resin and the inlay.

Like the time I bought this 90s Squier Telecaster for $150 on Reverb and it showed up with DiMarzio Twang King pickups in it.. Buddy, you got hooked up! \,,/,(>

It is a FSR Surf Pearl.

This is why, if you are buying a guitar to play, you should always be more concerned about how it plays and not what the logo on the end says nor whether anyone listening to you cares about that logo either, because unless they too are a guitar player, they almost certainly won't care about that. In the entire history of guitar making, there is no recorded case ever, of the logo and serial number on the end of a guitar affecting how it plays or what it sounds like and it's not at all uncommon for used guitars to have been modded. I don't think there is a single guitar in my entire collection which hasn't had something done to it, be it tuners, pick ups, nuts, bridges or whatever. Now of course it is nice to have things which are 'genuine', and if you buy something sold as genuine which turns out to not what it was sold as, then that's something you can take up with the seller, who may or may not themselves have been similarly duped or unaware of some later mods it may have had. But even after all that can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, if it plays okay and you like it, really it's not a problem. I never worry about what such things will do for 'resale value' either, because there are better things to invest in if that's a concern. The best-sounding and best-playing acoustic guitar I have, is a cheap ass Silvertone Dark Star; it blows my other more expensive acoustic guitars out of the water and I knew that when I tried it in the shop, so I did not care what logo was on the end of it, I cared that it sounded and played great and would be even better when I did a bit of tweaking and some decent hardware on it. The same is true of a lot of electric guitars I have.

I think that searching for "2018 Mexican special edition Strat" would be the way to nail down the model quick. As you said, there's no other indicator as to the model on the guitar itself and so people will naturally use that in listings and searches, whether they themselves are trying to identify one or simply trying to sell it for the best possible price. Also, as soon as I saw the brass trem block my first thought was that it had been modified/upgraded so that would set my spidey senses tingling and searching out other stuff like pickups etc. If someone's doing that to an MX Strat then probably they're going to throw in a set of U.S.A pickups too. Nice that it's seemingly got a Pure Vintage set as well. Another thing, I think that marking on the sticker under the scratchplate is a 7 with a cross-bar, rather than an F Congrats, reckon you got a good deal here

My MIM strat is worthless. It's a 2000 model. I've modded it with Fender alnico pickups, PIO capacitors, bridge pickup on tone pot, Callaham trem block, stainless steel saddles, 5 trem springs, aluminum shielding and an aftermarket roasted maple neck with the original tuners. I wore the frets out on the stock neck. I'll never get the money back I spent on it, but I don't need another anyway.😊

If strings are lines drawn on a piece of cardboard, this is a fake guitar.

You got a deal, actually. That is real in a nice seafoam green, and upgraded hardware.

i looked up 2 sqiers this week on that fender page got no result. got results on both few years before they changed the page.Mn1997 squier and a gold 2001 affiniy

It came from an alternate universe.

I thought Mexican Fenders had the old type headatock spaghetti lettering in gold, not the heavy black like this one.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a second hand Fender or Gibson, too many fakes around. I'd rather buy the fake from new and know I have a fake. You can always upgrade to genuine hardware if you like.

That Fender logo looks like a '70's reissue. An unmarked neck plate is not good, brass tremolo block is not a standard feature either. If you take the neck off, there might be some markings or indications.

M04 barcode on body= 2004? Also, could be 7 not an F sticker in CNC hole. Very nice guitar.

Score! What a nice guitar.

It a Fender , dont worry about it 😊 The last person who had it did not get their money out of it , what makes you think youll get more.😮

it's most certainly all UPGRADES from the stock stuff, you're lucky

I still go for the sound of that american strat, its way different than mexico strat

Nice Guitar!

I wouldn't worry about it being a "fake" if there's no US serial on it.

All Stratocasters are partscasters, whether you pick the parts or pay Fender to do it for you.

You're just trying to save face that you paid the same price for one you could've gotten new, and got ripped off lol.

There's nothing wrong with you're mexican standard

Yes, probably got too much time on your hands.

What a nerd... why would anyone try to fake a $600 mexican strat? I'd be more worried about a 3 or 4K "Custom Shop" that didn't have a COA maybe... but come on... what a nervous nellie.

Who would bobber to fake a Mexican You're tutorial is extremely boring