Fender Stratocaster- Reissue Strat Bodies

Contours
The early AVRI strat bodies produced at the Fullerton, CA plant (1982-1984) had many characteristic features from the later strat bodies produced at the Corona, CA plant (1985-present).  Namely, the rear cutout on Fullerton era strats were deeper, longer, and had a more subtle transition into the rest of the body.  This created a top edge of the body that was sleek and thin compared to the more squared top edge of later reissue strats.  These sleek "Fullerton contours" were also found on the very first reissue strats to come out of the Corona plant.  It is thought that the very first Corona factory reissue strats actually used bodies that were left over from the Fullerton factory and thus constructed on the old dies and machines as the earlier Fullerton reissues.  From my experience, serial numbers in the low V020000's typically have these "Fullerton contours."  It was not until serial numbers in the mid to high V020000's (early/mid 1987) that the contours changed on Corona factory produced guitars.  These later reissues had an asymmetric rear cutout that had a sharper transition into the rest of the body.  Along with this, the top edge of the body was left more square.

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  Back contour of a 1982 reissue strat
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  Back contour of a 1982 reissue strat
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  Back contour of a 1983 reissue strat
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  Back contour of a 1987 reissue strat
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  Thin top edge of a 1982 reissue strat
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  Thin top edge of a 1987 reissue strat
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  Back contour of a 1989 reissue strat
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  Top edge of a 1989 reissue strat

Reissue Strat Routing
During initial assembly of the very first 1982 AVRI stratocasters, Fender had many problems with completed pickup assemblies fitting in the pickup and control cutouts.  Many of these very early 1982 AVRI strats had to have a small section of wood removed in order to accomodate the pickup assemblies.  This was done on the assembly line using a small handheld pin-router after finishes had been applied.  The result was a very thin section of wood being routed from the backside of the bridge pickup cutout as well as edges of the control cavity cutout.  On the very first reissue strat bodies it is common to have more routing done, as it took several weeks to nail down what specific areas of the cavities were actually causing the problem.  Tooling changes at the end of 1982 corrected this problem, relieving the need for assembly line pin-routing.

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  V000939 factory pin routing
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  V000939 factory pin routing
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  V000978 factory pin routing
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  V000978 factory pin routing

Reissue Strat Serial Numbers
A few of the early 1982 reissue strats had a small rectangular sticker stamped with the serial number in the neck pocket.  This is a rare feature and is only found on early 1982 AVRI strats.  From my experience this feature is mostly found on instruments with serial numbers below V003000 or so.

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  V000204 neck pocket sticker
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  V000939 neck pocket sticker
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  V001460 neck pocket sticker
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  V002479 neck pocket sticker

Reissue Strat Dates
Early AVRI Strats made at the Fullerton factory do not have date stamps in the neck pocket.  Only a few 1982 AVRI strats left the factory with a small black ink date stamp in the tremolo cutout on the rear of the body.  It was not until 1987 that date stamps were regularly used in the neck pocket.  This was done inconsistently during the late 1980's and it was not until the 1990's that date stamps were consistently used in the neck pocket.

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  1982 reissue strat tremolo cavity date stamp
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  1982 reissue strat tremolo cavity date stamp
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  1986 reissue strat neck pocket date stamp
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  1989 strat neck pocktet date stamp

Reissue Strat Worm Route
All AVRI strats have a "worm-hole route" in the bridge position.  There was inconsistency through the years with the shape of the worm-hole route.  This route can either be a straight line with a small triangle shape or an L shape.

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  Reissue strat worm route shape #1
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  Reissue strat worm route shape #2