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So I posted on local ads some gear for sale/trade and this fella from another city offered me this strat for trade; I dont know much bout strats so...from pics it looks kinda fakey, CBS neck with weird logo-bullet truss but with 4 bolt attachment so it smells like mid 70ties, with mismatched body that looks untouched with neck plate from late 60ties... Can anybody spot something from these pics, dont have gut pics and Im meeting with him tomorrow...Any help will do

Something is off to me - the combo of tuners, bullet truss, that particular logo, and the 4 bolt neck says "beware."

There are a lot of fakes and relabeled clones.

Whether I'd bite or not depends on the particular guitar, how much they want for it (trade value or otherwise, etc).

Non-vintage tuners + 4 bolt neck + bullet truss screams Far East origin instrument, whether or not it's a legit Fender.

Mid-70s stock would have several different features than that guitar.

Not much of a huge Strat guy though, just stuff I've picked up over the years back when nobody wanted the 70s stuff (and I still don't).

You pretty much nailed it. Ive meet the guy,could not tell if hes crook or not,but the strat is very accurate in terms of measures but features and neck removing gave it all away...it is very old,probably Japanese copy - And I deicided to bail,since I didnt find out country or brand of origin. Thanks for help :-)

thats a tricky era to age fenders. they kinda were just throwing any parts they had together back than. 4 bolts were still being used tll 71, and started being used again in 78 however they switched over decals. it looks like this has the earlier decal with the double swoop in the n. i read you took off the neck, did you take off the pickguard too? my 68 mustang the date stamp wore off the body and neck, we had to do date check by body cavity (to double check serial number)

i would think you did good passing this up. its just a weird era for someone to try to make a fake of though and some of it dose seem legitish but somethings is deff off. the tuners dont really set off any alarms, any old vintage players i have usually have after market tuners, that being said i would have gone over this with a fucking magnifying glass because 4 bolt early 70s is my fucking holy grail. that would be me just hoping though haha

I've seen many fakes of that era that were made contemporary to the instruments, so they've aged too.

In person they're a lot easier to spot than with a couple photos, but they always have those tuners, most have the bullet truss, and 4 bolt necks.

Lot of 'add a decal' to a clone too, that was before Fender got all rightly anal about replacement ones.