Thread: eric johnson fender

It's a very subjective topic, but personally I'm not sure the build quality and material difference is really worth it on the higher end instruments.

To my mind, a lower end strat with upgraded pickups would set me back under half that price, and would sound as nice. Or you could get an Aussie made Maton electric that sounds every bit as good as the $3000 strat and is probably up to the same build quality, but doesn't have the fender brand name jacking the price up.

I think you'd be very lucky to find one at a garage sale, it's too well known a brand not to find itself on eBay instead and they don't go cheap there.

To me, buying a signature model fender is a waste of money at those prices.
You are better off building a partscaster using warmoth parts and getting the pickups that suit you.

Hi Jeff
I got that bridge in for my acoustic can you pm your contact number to arange a time to call around
Have you built any strats?
The eric johnsons really look nice but not for that money unless i win keno

Originally Posted by Farm boy

The eric johnsons really look nice but not for that money unless i win keno

If you win Keno you can buy Eric Johnson

Originally Posted by Farm boy

Hi All
I had 30 minutes or so to kill before picking my daughter up from school and wandered in to the local music store to look at guitars (it is cheaper to window shop my wife would kill me if i brought one home)
the fenders intriged me and they had this eric johnson stratocastor one for around $3000
it looked lovely but are they really worth this they also had other american made fenders which were nice aswell
they had elcheapoes on display below this one which were ok but not the same as the american ones, are the artist edition fenders that good or is an old fender from the 1970,s that you might be lucky enough to find in a garage sale better
thanks
greg

The Fenders from the 70s are becoming collectable however, they are rubbish. You can pick up a good 2nd hand US made strat for under $1500 (maybe 5 yrs old) if you shop around. If you trust Ebay there are lots of bargains. The modern standard strats are just great, and if you want that Eric Johnson sound it wouldn't cost that much for 'Texas Special' pickups. By the way, Eric Johnson is one of the best guitar players goin' round. He likes to play 1958 strats and they sound awesome (worth about $100,000+ if original).

Other than the nitro lacquer finsh, there is not much on this that actually costs Fender more money to produce than a standard Strat. its all just a mix and match of various standard and optional components from years past.

mass produced guitars built to make money not music
out of the $3000+ CS fenders you will get 6 keepers out of 10 guitars
out of the std US line you will get maybe 4 keepers
out of the Mex/chi/indian you will get way less