Fender Custom Shop TME-Spec "Korinacaster" 1963 Stratocaster w/Fralins Natural/Journeyman

We've been working with Fender since 2019 and feel like we're starting to hit our stride with them with regards to our TME-Spec orders. A big part of what we do here at The Music Emporium is dream up builds with the folks we work with - either as tributes, replicas, or original ideas that haven't been seen before. We recently spec'd a pair of Strats that fall under the replica category, but replicas we haven't seen in the market - the Korina (limba) Stratocaster from the 1960s.

Korina is a Gibson wood by reputation. It is the trade name for African limba, and it has been tied to the Flying V and Explorer since the late 1950s. What very few people know is that Fender tried it too.

Around late 1963, Fender brought in enough limba to build a handful of Stratocasters. They left the factory in sunburst, looking like every other Strat on the line, and for decades nobody noticed what was under the finish. Three have been documented. One was bought new in Fresno for a 12-year-old taking his first lessons and then spent decades in a closet. Another arrived at a vintage dealer's shop stripped and in pieces in a box, where the color of the bare wood gave it away. Vintage Guitar magazine told the story and nicknamed the guitar the "Korinacaster." The people who have played the originals describe them in similar terms: light, resonant, and warmer than the Strats around them.

We were inspired by that article, studied those three guitars, and decided we wanted to play one. As the Boston area's Fender Custom Shop Showcase dealer, we get to ask for things like this, so we spec'd two.

The originals carried standard Strat pickups. Ours do not, and that is the part of this build we are most excited about. We chose Lindy Fralin's Steel Pole 43 set, his P90-style design in a standard Strat-size cover. A P90 is a Gibson pickup by birth, and paired with korina it brings out the Gibson side of this guitar: more body in the mids, a rounder attack, some grit when you dig in. What surprised us is how much Strat is still there. The chime and the top end are intact, and positions 2 and 4 are some of the best in-between sounds we have heard from a Strat (seriously).

If you're into Strats and have "been there, done that" a million times with Alder or Ash bodied versions, you really owe it to yourself to check out one of these Korinacasters. They're phenomenal guitars, period, and we've only ordered 2 to date - so, rare to say the least!