Help Identifying Fender Strat

Hello,
I am trying to help a friend determine the year/value of a nice Fender Strat. Headstock has Custom Shop USA and serial # CN200831. Appears to be mahogony solid body and the neck looks like it is NOT bolted on ? Can anyone help ?

Hi Rosscee, welcome to the forum I hope you will like it here.

From Fender's website it says the CN + 6 digits serial numbers are made in Korea at an "unclear date".

You may want to see for yourself HERE (please click)

Hope this helps

Really !! wow. I went to the link and I see it. I was sure that this was a USA Custom Shop guitar. You mean Fender had that printed on the headstock even though it was made in Korea ? Why would they do this ? Darn, how disappointing

Maybe the guitar was disassembled by someone and reconstructed with a different headstock that was made in the USA but has its original body has a different serial number? Or are the serial number and "USA Custom Shop" guitar on the same part?

Here is a picture of the rear of the headstock. Hope this helps

The made in USA and the Fender Custom Shop info on the back of the neck does not appear to be some kind of fake decal. It is under the gloss finish. Here is the front....

More info...

and last info

It is really strange, Rosscee. It is totally contradictionary to what their website says about that serial number yet indeed it looks to be genuine on the guitar. (which is beautiful btw).

But does it actually s-a-y: "made" in the USA? Because custom shop might well mean perhaps Fender is a U.S. based company? (English isn't my mothertongue so if I made a linguistic mistake here, please understand)

Here is the response I received from the guitar forums at Next Level Guitar:

What you have is a Set neck Made in the USA in 1992(N nineties+2) Custom shop guitar. Ash Body, highly figured book-matched maple top, set in maple neck, 22 fret ebony finger board with pearl dot inlays, Fender Deluxe vibrato, LSR roller nut locking tuners chrome hardware,2 Texas Special single coil /Seymour Duncan JB humbucker pickups, volume/2 tone controls, 5 position switch, available in Antique Burst or Natural finishes valued at $1700 for mint down to $650 for good(60%) condition.

Great you found that out and told us about it, rosscee. Still very strange it surely falls under the category of CN + 6 digits of the Fender website though. Perhaps they should detail that particular series a bit better, since this way it is quite confusing.

Whatever: it looks like you have a piece of classic quality there. Does your friend want to sell it, or was he just curious to its origins and/or value?

I think he would sell it if he got a good offer. Probably on eBay.

Well, good luck with that then
(you wouldn't want to buy it from him?)

I am an accoustic player. I am too old for electric..

Eeeyyhhhh ??? No one is too old for anything! Why do you say that?