Fender Vintera 60S Stratocaster Electric Guitar For Sale (2024 Update)

Bit of a clickbait title, but I genuinely sold my Gibson SG to downsize buy a cheap guitar + a load of other bits and pieces. Do I regret it? Not in the slightest. Now obviously build quality and sound aren't to the standards of the Gibson, but this cost a fraction of the price and honestly; I've not really lost anything. 15 years ago when I started playing instruments, buying a guitar at this price was a stop gap, and generally had more faults than positives… what has changed in that time!? Squires bottom of the range guitars are infinitely better than any other guitar i have played at the same price point, and this guitar holds up against mid range guitars. So, bad points? There's a couple of minors. The neck has a single rough spot that was fixed in less than 10 seconds with a fine sand down, but that was it in terms of looks and feel. The frets are perfect, the setup out of the box literally needed a quarter of a clockwise screwdriving to sort the intonation on the low E – I've never had so little to setup on any guitar I've ever owned (Maybe I got lucky, but to think this is possible on such a cheap guitar is magical). The only 'issue' I'd say this guitar has is, the pick ups aren't very hot. They're more than reasonable, especially at the price point, but dont expect to fill out an arena with the sound. Important to point out: this guitar costs about the same as a good set of pick ups… so this actually just makes this a great project guitar as well. Lovely smooth matt neck, which i'm a huge fan of, tight neck joint, well finished frets and reasonable tuners that are better than yesteryears tuning pegs. If you're looking for a starter guitar, a project guitar, a guitar for some home studio recording, a back up guitar or something you can chuck about and have a bit of fun with, this is the one.

Earlier this year, I decided I'd like a telecaster style guitar to give me an alternative to my Fender Strat. Originally purchased a G&L tele from a firm who shall remain nameless (hint: they're named after the generic name for the things I'm talking about in this review, times two!). Unboxing said item, I was really underwhelmed – it didn't come in its original G&L packaging for starters – and I ended up sending it back. Forgot about a new guitar for a few months until I came across the Fender Squier Classic Vibe 50s in Butterscotch. Loved the understated look, a proper "classic" look in this particular finish. Read some glowing reviews, looked around for the best price and found it here at DV247. Bit the bullet, and it was delivered without a hitch a few days later (think it's shipped over from Germany). The package weighed a ton! Well packaged by DV247, and inside another sturdy box well packaged by Fender – I should have done an unboxing video! When I finally got to the guitar – a thing of beauty! Albeit understated, as I said before. The most impressive thing? All that way from Indonesia, halfway across the world to Germany, then via courier to my door – the damned thing is still in tune!!! Buy one!

I usually don`t write reviews but I had to for this guitar. After reading a ton of reviews regarding the Squire Classic Vibe 50s and owning a 2018 MiM Stratocaster I was on the verge of buying another MiM due to selling the one I had. I never was really disappointed with the MiM but to me it just lacked that hardcore Fender Strat tone I was looking for. Don`t get me wrong, it did have good tone but it wasn`t great tone (vintage tone). I could afford to buy an American Stratocaster but I could not see spending that kind of money when I am not a professional player. What I did learn from studying up on the Squire 50s is that it has the Alnico pickups instead of the Ceramic pickups like the MiM which is a huge plus. In addition, the tone wood (body) which is pine on the 50s Classic Vibe is the tone wood (body) that they used on some of the earlier Stratocasters. After I had read several of the reviews I rolled the dice and bought me one from Sweetwater. I got the guitar and was really surprised on how well it was set up right out of the box (Thank you Sweetwater). I didn`t have to do anything to it, action was spot on (low) and guitar was in tune. I looked the guitar over and the finish was flawless. I had a good sit down with the guitar on both a Fender tube and a Peavey SS amp and I have to say, I am very very happy with the purchase that I made. The guitar does have that sweet Fender tone that I was looking for. It`s better than MiM tone that I was getting by a good margin (MiM more for playing modern stuff). If you want to take the guitar just a bit further, you can replace the tremolo bridge with a MiM tremolo as an upgrade and you will have guitar that sounds really really close to an American Fender without the large price tag that comes with it. If your looking for a super good guitar, well made, plays fantastic and oozes Fender tone, you can`t go wrong here. Worth every dime and then some. Don`t let that Squire name stop you, you will be rewarded very nicely. Oh, and a shout out to Joe Perrone from Sweetwater, thank you Joe 🙂

Sound: Today's guitars are all made on cnc's unless you get something like a US made G&L, those are cut out with bandsaws and routers, like fenders in the 50s up to the 70s. The neck pocket in mine is very clean and neat, the body routing is very clean, the frets were nice out of the box, no misaligned screws or parts, no blemishes in the finish or anything. Features: The least useful feature for a majority of people will be the rhythm circuit, it has its own volume and tone pots and is neck pickup only, with a much darker tone than the neck pickup on the lead circuit, leave the switch in the down position, and you never have to worry about it unless you want an old school jazz guitar tone. Then push that switch up. (It does old jazz guitar really well) Ease of Use: The jazzmaster has quite a bright bridge pickup, makes it well suited for surf, or spaghetti western guitar, but it also means distortion on the bridge pickup will cut through rather well. the neck pickup is strat like, but bigger and thicker. Like a strat neck pickup on steroids. Both pickups together results in a sweet soft sort of quack tone, due to the pickups being so far apart, it's not the same as a strat quack tone, but its very nice sounding. Then of course there's the neck only rhythm circuit which is very much like an old jazz tone (hence the name Jazzmaster)The pickups are generally higher output than most other fender pickups, and work well with distortion. A lot of people still think jazzmaster pickups are p90s. Nope, real jazzmaster pickups are roughly the same size, but thats where the similarities end. They don't even sound similar. This confusion is furthered by the old mexican player jazzmasters, the j mascius, and others that have P90's. Quality: Fender mexico didn't skimp on the electronic parts, the pickups are very much like a mid 60s jazzmaster in sound, even down to the gray bobbins and enamel coated coil wire. Pots are CTS, both switches and the jack are switchcraft, just like they are supposed to be. They should last forever. The trem is built well, but not exactly the same as the old ones, the trem arm is screw in, it really should be a push in arm, like all the old ones. Also, I think the hole of the trem arm in the top plate is way way too big, it only needs to be slightly bigger than the trem arm collet.The tuners are kluson like split shaft, loke fender used from the very earliest days until 68, they're not made by kluson but it doesn't matter the design is too simple to screw up. The frets are vintage, they're always described as tall and thin. They're not tall, but they are thin, it is a 60s styled guitar after all. But I think a lot of people used to 9.5 and flatter radiuses will have problems, it's a 7.25" radius fretboard, requires a bit higher action but a half hour or so of playing, you get used to it. It also has a truss rod nut at the heel of the neck, its a correct feature for all fender's prior to 1971, but man was that a bad design choice on leo fender's part. You either have to loosen the neck a lot or take it completely off to adjust neck relief, and hope you got it right.Now when I got my guitar I took it completely apart (I always do). What I found on the inside could be improved. First was an excessive amount of wire. There is a lot of wire in a jazzmaster, but they didn't even bother cutting the pickup leads to length. Both pickups had about a foot of unnecessary lead wire, so I fixed that.The other issue was a bad conductive paint job in the cavities. The jazzmaster is an electrically noisy guitar, they need all the shielding they can get. The conductive paint was one thin coat, and didn't even go up the sides of the cavities, it wasn't doing anything. From 1958 to the end of the original run around 1980 each jazzmaster had brass tubs in all the cavities, all soldered together and grounded. I don't expect that in a new jazzmaster, but they knew then that it needed shielding. The pickguard in 58 was also gold anodized aluminum, which was excellent for shielding. But the anodizing wasn't good, and the gold wore off after a few months so and looked awful. In 59 fender switched to plastic tort pickguards, with a thin pickguard sized aluminum shield underneath. Anyway I properly shielded the cavities. Also the pickguard only had aluminum tape for the toggle switch to the jack, and another piece for piece for rhythm circuit switch and pots. That ain't going to do it. I added more shielding, put it all back together and it was a major improvement. Recently I decided to see what a proper gold anodized aluminum pickguard would look like on ice blue metallic, and its VERY cool, looks like a 1960s california speed shop modded my guitar, might put some tele knobs on it sometime.I also made another modification, I had a 65 reissue trem and bridge laying around, so I put them on it. In the old days, the lock button, trem

The difference between the classic vibe and an affinity version of the Squire by fender telecaster model is more than evident. I would totally recommend this one for a more advance player on a budget.

This guitar came to me with an outstanding setup. I only had to adjust the string action a bit lower. The nut is perfect and the neck relief is fine. The frets have a good polish and were smooth at the edge of the neck. This guitar is a real player, I can get SRV and Hendrix tone out of it easily with the neck pickup and a Tube Screamer. I use overdrive pedals to give it some juice through a clean amp at bedroom levels. Its not an overly heavy monster either, I was pleasantly pleased with the weight. Love the 12" neck radius like my Les Paul. The vibrato bridge snaps right back into correct tune, amazing how it stays in tune. I'm looking forward to years of enjoyment with this guitar, I love it. There is some serious bang for the buck going on here. Sure you could probably "upgrade" many of the components but if you want to cut to the chase and get on with it, this will do right out of the box.

Overall, I love it! It plays like a dream, and once the holidays are over and I can get it down to my favorite shop to change out the strings from Fender 10's to D'Addario 12's and adjust the set-up accordingly, it will be a killer guitar. The main reason I ended up with the Classic Player's 60's Stratocaster was all the features included with this model. I have been searching for a production level Stratocaster with a 12 inch radius neck (which I prefer – not for everyone I realize) and none of the American Standards or even the Vintage series have that. The only guitars that seem to have that neck stock are either very high end or signature series guitars, and I already own a SRV signature strat. Along comes this model having a 12 inch radius neck, throw in Custom Shop 69 pickups, the two-point bridge (previously only available from the Custom Shop), aged pickguard and knobs, vintage tuners, and it seemed like a perfect match to the specs I was looking for! These guitars are designed by the Custom Shop (Greg Kessler to be exact) and it shows in their quality. I don't get hung up by MIA versus MIM as Cornona is only miles from the Ensenada factory and these guitars, with the guidance and training from the Custom Shop are top notch. I would stand up this guitar next to any American Standard without hesitation, and in a lot of ways, it beats them when you compare the out-the-door prices and quality. The fit and finish is excellent … albeit a poly finish, instead of nitro, and well put together throughout!

I usually don`t write reviews but I had to for this guitar. After reading a ton of reviews regarding the Squire Classic Vibe 50s and owning a 2018 MiM Stratocaster I was on the verge of buying another MiM due to selling the one I had. I never was really disappointed with the MiM but to me it just lacked that hardcore Fender Strat tone I was looking for. Don`t get me wrong, it did have good tone but it wasn`t great tone (vintage tone). I could afford to buy an American Stratocaster but I could not see spending that kind of money when I am not a professional player. What I did learn from studying up on the Squire 50s is that it has the Alnico pickups instead of the Ceramic pickups like the MiM which is a huge plus. In addition, the tone wood (body) which is pine on the 50s Classic Vibe is the tone wood (body) that they used on some of the earlier Stratocasters. After I had read several of the reviews I rolled the dice and bought me one from Sweetwater. I got the guitar and was really surprised on how well it was set up right out of the box (Thank you Sweetwater). I didn`t have to do anything to it, action was spot on (low) and guitar was in tune. I looked the guitar over and the finish was flawless. I had a good sit down with the guitar on both a Fender tube and a Peavey SS amp and I have to say, I am very very happy with the purchase that I made. The guitar does have that sweet Fender tone that I was looking for. It`s better than MiM tone that I was getting by a good margin (MiM more for playing modern stuff). If you want to take the guitar just a bit further, you can replace the tremolo bridge with a MiM tremolo as an upgrade and you will have guitar that sounds really really close to an American Fender without the large price tag that comes with it. If your looking for a super good guitar, well made, plays fantastic and oozes Fender tone, you can`t go wrong here. Worth every dime and then some. Don`t let that Squire name stop you, you will be rewarded very nicely. Oh, and a shout out to Joe Perrone from Sweetwater, thank you Joe 🙂