The V. C. Squier Company manufactured strings for violins, banjos, and guitars. It was established in 1890 by Victor Carroll Squier in Battle Creek, Michigan. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation Wikipedia. Coordinates 3. 33. N1. 115. 35. 7W 3. N 1. 11. 8. 99. 05. W 3. 3. 6. 46. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation FMIC, commonly referred to simply as Fender, is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. It is famous for its solid body electric guitars and bass guitars, such as the Stratocaster also known as the Strat, Telecaster also known as the Tele, Precision Bass also known as the P Bass, and the Jazz Bass also known as the J Bass. Its headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company, previously named the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas Leo Fender in 1. The company is a privately held corporation with Andy Mooney serving as the Chief Executive Officer. The company filed for an initial public offering in March 2. Gretsch Guitars Understanding Gretsch guitar serial numbers. Gretsch used several different serial number schemes through the years. Each of them can be used to. Welcome to this Forum If you contact the Fender Consumer Dept, theyll be happy to date your guitar. If you are the original Buyer of this new guitar,you can ask your. Knowing how to choose a Fender Telecaster can often be a challenge. Let the experts at The HUB from Musicians Friend help you make the right choice. Buddy Hollys Les Paul A guitar that changed the course of music history by not being played. In addition to its Scottsdale headquarters, Fender has manufacturing facilities in Corona, California US and Ensenada, Baja California Mexico. The company also manufactures acoustic guitars, electric basses, mandolins, banjos, and electric violins, as well as guitar amplifiers, bass amplifiers, and PA public address equipment. Other Fender brands include Squier entry levelbudget, Jackson, Charvel, EVH guitars and amplifiers in collaboration with Eddie Van Halen, and the manufacture and distribution of Gretsch guitars under license. HistoryeditIn 1. Fender introduced the first mass produced solid body Spanish style electric guitar, the Telecaster originally named the Broadcaster for two pickup models and Esquire for single pickup. Following its success, Fender created the first mass produced electric bass, the Precision Bass P Bass. In 1. 95. 4, Fender unveiled the Stratocaster Strat guitar. With the Telecaster and Precision Bass on the market for some time, Leo Fender was able to incorporate input from working musicians into the Stratocasters design. The Strats comfortable contoured edges and in built vibrato system led to its soaring popularity. Fender Guitar Serial Numbers Search' title='Fender Guitar Serial Numbers Search' />While Fender was not the first to manufacture electric guitars luthiers and larger musical instrument manufacturers had produced electric guitars since the late 1. Fenders instruments superseded what had come before. Furthermore, while nearly all other electric guitars featured hollow bodies making them most similar to an acoustic guitar or more specialized designs, such as Rickenbackers solid body Hawaiian guitars, Fenders instruments possessed an unprecedented level of versatility. The solid wood bodies of Fenders instruments allowed for minimal feedback with high gain amplification, an issue that plagued earlier guitars. The Fender guitars were popular with musicians in a variety of genres and are now revered for their build quality and tonal excellence. Originsedit. Diagram of Leo Fenders lap steel guitar from 1. The company began as Fenders Radio Service in late 1. Fullerton, California. It got its name from the surname of its founder Leo Fender. As a qualified electronics technician, Leo Fender had been asked to repair not only radios, but also phonograph players, home audio amplifiers, public address systems and musical instrument amplifiers. At the time, most of these were just variations on a few simple vacuum tube circuits. All designs were based on research developed and released to the public domain by Western Electric in the 1. The business also sidelined in carrying records for sale and the in rental of company designed PA systems. Leo became intrigued by design flaws in contemporary musical instrument amplifiers and began building amplifiers based on his own designs or modifications to designs. By the early 1. 94. Clayton Orr Doc Kauffman and together they formed the company K F Manufacturing Corp to design, manufacture, and market electric instruments and amplifiers. Production began in 1. Hawaiian lap steel guitars incorporating a patented pickup and amplifiers sold as sets. By the end of the year Fender became convinced that manufacturing was more profitable than repair and he decided to concentrate on that business instead. Kauffman remained, however, unconvinced and he and Fender amicably parted ways by early 1. At that point Leo renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company. The service shop remained open until 1. Leo Fender did not personally supervise it after 1. A custom lap steel guitar made in 1. Noel Boggs was probably the very first product of the new company, already sporting the familiar Big F logo. In the late 1. Leo Fender began to experiment with more conventional guitar designs. As early as 1. 94. Telecaster can be made out in some of Fenders prototypes. Early Telecasters were plagued with issues Leo Fender boasted the strength of the Telecasters one piece pine neck while early adopters lamented its tendency to bow in humid weather. Fenders reluctant addition of a metal truss rod into the necks of his guitars allowed for the much needed ability to fine tune the instrument to the musicians specific needs. With the design of the Telecaster finalized, mass production began in 1. The key to Fenders ability to mass produce an electric guitar was the modular design of the Telecaster. Its bolted on neck allowed for the instruments body and neck to be milled and finished separately and for the final assembling to be done quickly and cheaply by unskilled workers. Fender owed its early success not only to its founder and talented associates such as musicianproduct engineer Freddie Tavares but also to the efforts of sales chief, senior partner and marketing genius Don Randall. According to The Stratocaster Chronicles a book by Tom Wheeler Hal Leonard Pub., Milwaukee, WI 2. Randall assembled what Fenders original partner Doc Kauffman called a sales distributorship like nobody had ever seen in the world. Randall worked closely with the immensely talented photographerdesigner, Bob Perine. Their catalogs and ads were innovative such as the You Wont Part With Yours Either campaign, which portrayed people surfing, skiing, skydiving, and climbing into jet planes, all while holding Jazzmasters and Stratocasters. In Fender guitar literatures of the 1. Perines classic Thunderbird convertible at local beachside settings, firmly integrating Fender into the surfinhot rodsports car culture of Southern California celebrated by the Beach Boys, beach movies, and surf music. The Stratocaster Chronicles, by Tom Wheeler Hal Leonard Pub., Milwaukee, WI 2. This early success is dramatically illustrated by the growth of Fenders manufacturing capacity through the 1. Sale to CBSeditIn early 1. Leo Fender sold his companies to the Columbia Broadcasting System CBS for 1. This was almost two million more than they had paid for The New York Yankees a year before. CBS entered the musical instruments field by acquiring the Fender companies Fender Sales, Inc., Fender Electric Instrument Company, Inc., Fender Acoustic Instrument Company, Inc., Fender Rhodes, Inc., Terrafen, Inc., Clef Tronix, Inc., Randall Publishing Co., Inc., and V. C. Squier Company, as well as Electro Music Inc. Leslie speakers, Rogers drums, Steinway pianos, Gemeinhardt flutes, Lyon Healy harps, Rodgers institutional organs, and Gulbransen home organs. This had far reaching implications. Lo 1 1B Flaming Cliffs Setup Outlook here. The sale was taken as a positive development, considering CBSs ability to bring in money and personnel who acquired a large inventory of Fender parts and unassembled guitars that were assembled and put to market. However, the sale also led to a reduction of the quality of Fenders guitars while under the management of cost cutting CBS. Several cosmetic changes occurred after 1. Bound necks with block shaped position markers were introduced in 1.