Interesting Offering from Fender

jp

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Has anyone noticed this unusual offering from Fender?




The Fender Classic Player Rascal Bass. It's like a Fender VI-meets-Danelectro, with three lipstick pickups, short scale, and a matching headstock. I think it's pretty cool. The most noticeable feature for us, of course, is the Guild Starfire bridge. I wonder if they had a few buckets of leftover bridges sitting around from the Guild-owning days?
 

mavuser

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amazing they didnt just sell the leftover Guild bridges, as there is a pretty decent market for them.

that bass is super ridiculous!
 

fronobulax

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amazing they didnt just sell the leftover Guild bridges, as there is a pretty decent market for them.

that bass is super ridiculous!

relying on my always suspect memory, that would have to be a bridge from the 90's reissue, if it has anything to do with a Starfire at all, and I think it is documented on LTG that the mounting holes are different for the vintage and 90's reissue - specifically you can't put a 90's bridge on a vintage Starfire without drilling some holes. So I suspect the market was never very big and is now smaller now that Newark Street parts are available.
 

adorshki

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I love the way it looks! That was probably well in the works when Guild was still owned by FMIC.
Wonder if those bridge plates could actually be left over DeArmond parts:
$_86.JPG
 

lungimsam

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I'm disappointed they discontinued the Mustang basses as I like the way they sound and was just looking for one and they discontinued them, None to be found online!!!! Arrrghhhh!!! Anyone wanna sell theirs?

Still waiting for a burst Starfire that isn;t signature.
 

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Wonder if those bridge plates could actually be left over DeArmond parts:
$_86.JPG

From all indications, when Fender concludes anything, be it a line, a factory, or a brand, a dumpster is preferred over a warehouse...
 

jp

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From all indications, when Fender concludes anything, be it a line, a factory, or a brand, a dumpster is preferred over a warehouse...
I seem to recall tales of employee dumpster diving during one of the Guild factory demises. How I wish I was there. Hmm . . . now where was that thread . . . ?
 

adorshki

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I seem to recall tales of employee dumpster diving during one of the Guild factory demises. How I wish I was there. Hmm . . . now where was that thread . . . ?
I'm assuming your tongue's firmly planted in cheek, but maybe new members would be interested to know Hans himself did that at Westerly.
But I don't recall any similar stories about Corona or Tacoma and thought maybe Steve was recalling old grievances about Fender's "methods".
But it's what made me think of DeArmond parts instead of Guild, that maybe they stumbled across an old forgotten stockpile of a brand name they still owned....
 

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They dumpstered Westerly and they dumpstered New Hartford, that I know for certain. I would conclude that they dumpstered Tacoma stock as the NH guitars were top to bottom redesigns.
 

fronobulax

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If an employee is dumpster diving then what path do you think the recovered parts would take to make it back onto the production line? I throw the Red Herring flag.

More reasonable, IMO, is that someone was bored and looking at old files and drawings, came across a 90's harp and said "hey, we can make this again." Or perhaps Fender buys their bridges and someone selected it from a catalog because keeping parts in production for 30+ years is what some factories do. I dare say that, while the harp bridge is somewhat iconic for fans of Guild vintage basses I doubt that it was ever part of Guild's intellectual property.
 

chazmo

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They dumpstered Westerly and they dumpstered New Hartford, that I know for certain. I would conclude that they dumpstered Tacoma stock as the NH guitars were top to bottom redesigns.
Steve, that's not correct. I'm surprised you're stating it that way. Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "dumpstered."

In Westerly, Fender discarded their stock and very little made it to Corona. In fact, we only know for sure that, equipment-wise, the laminate press made it; not sure about anything else. Stock wise (parts, etc.) almost everything was discarded. Right, Hans grabbed stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if some employees did as well. Yes, we've talked in some pretty heated terms about the closing of Westerly.

However, the closing of Tacoma and New Hartford were not done the same way. In fact, we know through all the trainwrecks that a whole bunch of unfinished / shelved material made it into the hands of MIRC when Tacoma closed. And, I know firsthand that wood was shipped to New Hartford. Not sure how much of the machinery made it, but New Hartford was very good about building/tooling their own shop; that's one of the reasons New Hartford got Guild.

And, now, we know that many finished guitars and equipment were shipped from NH to CMG's new Oxnard Guild shop. AFAIK, very little was actually discarded. In fact, we know operations for Ovation have been revived there, and I doubt they were starting from scratch. I don't know that all firsthand, but this is my observation.

So, what do you really mean? Was there really "dumpster diving" in NH?
 

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Yes, that's what I heard from my source. Fender threw out a lot of stuff related to Guild that CMG didn't buy.
 

Neal

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And, guitars that CMG did not take ended up in the hands of Fender and Guild employees, especially the prototypes.

I bought a D-55 New Hartford prototype from a Fender employee in Scottsdale. Great instrument.
 
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