Partscaster or Fernandes The Strat?

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Sigmania

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That's really odd because...

- who in their right mind would have "The Strat" brass vibratos made for them (it's an exact copy) plus golden metal knobs and then not give the guitar the matching headstock (in a time when matching headstocks were big at Fernandes anyway).

- if it were a partscaster - copies of that odd vibrato don't really float around much (this is the first I've seen).

Maybe one of these custom order jobs for a store?

Edit: Tokai made a proper "The Strat" copy indeed:

https://reverb.com/item/584432-tokai-ss-70-1981-limited-edition
Whenever I see something like that, I get insufferable GAS (for the copy, not the original, I briefly had one when they were the hot sh.t and boy did that guitar suck! :)).
 
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Looks like a straight neck-swap job to me? The body seems to be a bog-standard SS-70MR with all the original parts, stamps and tells in place, married to a Fernandes FST neck. The The Function moniker was used on various superstrats. Fernandes made tons of specials, artist's models and such, but as far as I know, they stayed away from The Strat.
There is a very late (autumn '81 until Fender copy production ended in April '82) Greco version of it, labeled DSE-600 on the neck heel, but otherwise undocumented. I think those two were the only The Strat copies to come out of Japan.

I've had one SS-70, it was basically a heavier ST-50 (despite missing the brass control knobs) with a really ugly headstock shape (as per the original). Fine guitar, but nothing out of the ordinary imo.

2020-11-22 11.22.11.jpg
 
My tokai has the same pickups and the pickgaurd fits the body.
May be an original of the tokai period
 
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