USA Customs Strat with Fishman Mann-Made bridge

Description

For those of you who aren’t familiar with USA Customs, they’ve built a solid following, initially via Ebay sales and more recently directly from their web site, usacustomguitars.com, offering quality guitar parts and completed guitars, made to order.  I’ve had 2 of them in the past, both excellent guitars, but it worked out such that I needed to part them out rather than sell them whole.  I’m going to give this one a try as a complete guitar and begin by stating that the quality is at least as good as USA Fender, definitely pro quality in all regards.  Starting with an Alder body that’s a nice light/medium weight, with a pearloid pickguard loaded with Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups – with CTS pots and switch.  You might recognize the bridge (pic here) as being identical to a PRS bridge and you’re correct – It’s a “Mann Made”, the same suppliers for PRS bridges from ’85 thru 00’s.  This particular bridge is the Fishman VMV Mann-made, which has piezo saddles which offer a pretty nice acoustic tone out of an electric guitar.  The output jack is a stereo jack and with a Y-cable, which can be included, you can send your electric tones  to one amp; your acoustic tones to an acoustic amp or mixing board.  There are also a number of wiring options which can be used but for now it’s wired in the most basic layout.  This guitar has seen very little playing time and is in really nice shape.  Last owner paid $1200, which is reasonable for a quality USA guitar with these features.  If you want some great Strat tones, with the flexibility of an acoustic bridge, here’s a really nice way to go – just $850 with case.  Note: Fender vintage logo can be installed for $30 to $65 (including parts & labor), depending on the style of installation.  This is a very nice Strat and…did I mention…just 7.2 lbs.