Stratocaster Mexican Vintage Players

The range at launch 2001 showing available colours I don't think any other colours were ever produced.

Hard evidence of details of this range is hard to find. Most of the confirmed information comes from Yogi on the Strat forum and some members of that and other forums. This guitar does not appear in any of the catalogues I can find but that isn't that surprising. It appears to originally been made in 2001 as a limited edition for Yamano and Fender Europe. There were four colours and 250 of each were made, so 1000 in all. Exactly how many were exported to where is impossible to tell. Also they have been seen in the USA.
There is good evidence that there was at least one more run of these in 2003, but how many and where these went to isn't clear. The specs seem to be fairly consistent throughout the range except that the 2003 Aztec Gold has Gold Hardware rather than Chrome. The Guitar was designed by J W Black of the custom shop and the 2001 release included his name on the special edition sticker.

Specifications
These guitars are essentially a special run of Classic 50s or 60s made for export so are very similar to that range. The price at the time was listed as $1,000

	Vintage Player 50s	Vintage Player 60s
Neck	Maple Soft V vintage tint	Maple C Vintage tint
Body	Alder Poly Finish	Alder Poly Finish
Fretboard	Maple 9.5" radius 21 frets	Rosewood 9.5" radius 21 frets
Hardware	Chrome	Chrome Gold on the 2003 Aztec Gold
Tuners	Kluson type Vintage Staggered	Kluson type Vintage Staggered
Bridge	Vintage 6pt	Vintage 6pt
Pickguard	1 ply 8 screw see picture above for colours	3 ply tortoiseshell 11 screw again see picture above
Pickups	3 Texas Specials aged covers	3 Texas Specials aged covers
Controls	2 tone 1 Volume 5 way switch aged white	2 tone 1 Volume 5 way switch aged white
Electronics	All as US models CTS Switchcraft etc.	All as US models CTS Switchcraft etc.

Here are some pictures of the stunning gold with gold hardware 2003 VP50s
       

The rest of the pictures are from the 2001 run
     

Update Feb 2023
Vidar Christensen also known as paulreedsmith on Strat talk has very kindly sent me a photo of the COA that comes with these guitars. Thanks Vidar I didn't even know there was a coa.

As I have said before hard information is tough to come by so if anyone can add anything correct or confirm anything please do.

Update May 2023
Steve Nattsas has sent me the following information. Thanks Steve
I ran across your info on the Vintage Player Stratocaster and just wanted to confirm that I have one of the 2003 release. Mine is of the Desert Sand w/ gold anodized pick guard version. It is identical to the 2001 release with one exception which is that the J. Black signature is missing on the special edition sticker.

Back to top