FENDER PAWN SHOP BRAND PROFILE
Pawn stars
Fender’s quirky new range of models from the mid ‘60s and ‘70s brings back some of the firm’s more eccentric designs, plus a few tweaks to update them and at accessible price points too. Gary Cooper checked out the collection….
A
curious thing about ‘golden eras’ is that you often don't realise you've been in one until it has gone. Back in the halcyon days of
electronic synthesis in the early 1980s, while everyone knew what was happening was important, few realised that it was actually revolutionary. The same has been true in the guitar business – and no one is more nostalgic than guitarists – where it's only in retrospect that people realised just how significant the 'Superstrat' era was. Brands have their halcyon days, too and
there's a good case to be made for suggesting that Fender is currently going through one. Having re-issued just about everything they had in the locker save for Leo's key fob, there must have been some head-scratching in Arizona about where to go next. And its first outcome, some brilliantly visualised and conceived amps, have already given us a hint where the company is going – inventing an alternative history, just like the plot of a classic sci-fi novel. Take the latest from the guitar division –
Fender's Pawn Shop series. These are Fenders that you think you vaguely recall seeing on your travels somewhere but haven’t. Fender bills them as ‘the guitars that never were, but should have been’ - and it is right: that’s exactly what the Fender 72, the Mustang Special and the Fender '51 look like. They're the guitars you imagine finding on a pawn shop wall, somewhere in the back of beyond. Neil Whitcher, divisional brand manager,
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The new Pawn Shop range has been cleverly designed to feel like they’re models you’ve seen on your travels
Fender Europe says: “Fender made bold moves from the mid ‘60s to the mid ‘70s, sometimes eccentric and wildly innovative. These guitars found a fond place in many people’s hearts, often finding their way to the fringes of popular music, for people seeking the alternative. “Kurt Cobain playing a modified Mustang is a
great example of this, these aren't guitars for the person searching for the ‘Holy Grail’ Stratocaster. They’re for someone who wants something different at a price point that isn’t considered budget or ‘entry level’ or indeed at the heights of the Custom Shop. These guitars draw inspiration from that era with tweaks that give them a modern usable playing experience and sound, guitars that never were but should have been! "We wanted to use the
innovative time of the mid- 60s as a new place to mess around with history, have a little more freedom from vintage constraints and open up a platform for some new designs – things that are different, yet distinctly ‘Fender’. "The CBS era is less of a dark period at least as
“
far as the more outsider design stuff goes – from Jonny Greenwood playing his Starcaster to Alex Turner favouring the Bronco. It’s also a place for us to experiment with more humbucking designs... the goal is to have lots of concepts and designs here and throw a lot of ideas against the
wall – some will catch on and may become mainstream, some will be curios in the history books years from now." Fender has priced the series in an interesting
These are different, yet distinctly Fender. Neil Whitcher
area, too – around £850 for the most expensive, the semi-hollow, Strat-bodied, Fender '72, down to the £750ish for the cheapest model, the Strat- bodied, Telecaster-necked '51. The newcomers won't just attract players who like Fender necks and general style but want humbuckers, but will tug hard at the heartstrings of younger players who want a guitar that helps them stand out, but with the credibility that many still feel comes from having one of the big US names on the headstock. As Neil Whitcher says, not all of them are destined to become long-term competitors to the Strat and Tele, but they cleverly fill a
market gap that Fender has identified and which few others seem to have found. Coupled with the current renaissance in Fender's amp range, it shows some serious midnight oil has been burning. Tantalisingly, there are hints from Fender that
this may just be the start of something – even more rummaging through the parts bin to see what fits with what; one of the great advantages conferred by Leo Fender's original design genius. If the Pawn Shop series catches the imagination as it well might, this could be the start of yet more days of future passed from the Big F.
miPRO JUNE 2011 27
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