Patience, Cash, and a Police Station: Chasing FCS NAMM Editions

I've never been invited to the Fender Custom Shop's annual NAMM showcase. Chances are, you haven’t either.

The event is dealer-invite only, held behind closed doors somewhere inside the Anaheim Convention Center each January. For the rest of us, it exists mostly through a handful of photos, videos, and secondhand stories posted online. 

Every year I study those images like a kid looking through the window of a candy store. Looking at this room full of Custom Shop guitars, I can only imagine what it must be like to walk through those aisles and see them all in person. God, to be loose in that room…

Collecting FCS / NAMM Editions
When it comes to Fender Custom Shop, I am choosey about what I acquire as a collector. One thing I like to focus on is these NAMM Limited Edition models. This is a lesser-known facet of the Fender Custom Shop collecting: how the business-to-business world of NAMM has quietly produced some distinctive and sought-after collector pieces in the Custom Shop's offerings.

As of this writing, I have not purchased any Master-built guitars. My collection focuses on Team-built instruments. I find collecting Limited Edition models — especially NAMM guitars — personally rewarding. 

NAMM is the “National Association of Music Merchants” – the preeminent trade industry association for music manufacturers and dealers. NAMM hosts a massive industry show every January at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Each year, the Custom Shop showcases its NAMM limited edition guitars for attending dealers.

Interested dealers browse the hundreds of showcase instruments and they slide their business cards between the strings of the guitars they are most enamored with. Then FCS does a raffle and the winning dealer gets to purchase that guitar for their store. If they did not win, dealers can also special-order individual models as part of a limited run. The ordered guitars will ship with the Floor Traveler listing at the bottom of the Notes section that the guitar was designed for a specific dealer event (such as NAMM). 

CZ537447
Let’s talk about a special example. This guitar started life at the Summer NAMM show in June 2018 — not as a purchase, but as a blueprint. The Custom Shop designed and made a showcase model to present at the show, a Fender dealer saw it and ordered this one to sell through their store. 

This 2018 NAMM Limited Edition '62 Strat was built August 13th 2018; 65 of this particular color and model were made in total. That’s right: only 65 of this model with these specs are out there in the wild.

I first saw this guitar listed on my local FB Marketplace, and I was smitten from the moment I saw it. It’s Surf Green over three-color sunburst — a color-over-color finish with the most amazing wood grain running through the heavy relic treatment.

The owner had a lot of misconceptions about this guitar including its value. He was asking more than retail for the guitar. When I initially offered him $2000 less, he laughed at me. The pursuit was on.

I knew it would eventually be mine, but I was gonna have to wait this one out.

We would check in from time-to-time; He kept trying to convince me this was a Master-Built guitar (it is not). But it did meet my non-negotiable pre-requisites: it had the COA, Floor Traveler, original case, etc.

In looking at the seller’s profile, he was a younger guy, very enamored of this guitar (rightly so, it’s a looker). He had lots of posts with it, and he even stated that he intended to pass the guitar down to his son in the future as a family inheritance. Ouch.

He’d reach back out: “Man, you gotta come up with some more money…”

“Nope. Standing by what I offered.”

“You got any other guitars? You gotta throw another guitar or two into the deal..”

“Nope. Standing by what I offered.”

Eventually, I kind of put the guitar out of my mind… some time had passed. We were on the lake fishing with our neighbors when I grabbed the net to bring in a monster that Steffy had on the line when the phone started buzzing in my pocket.

The wait-out was over; he blinked first.

I met him the next day at a local police station (smart move, which I recommend, BTW). Cash and guitar changed hands and I headed off to watch Sunday afternoon football with my boys.

The guy smoked so the guitar stunk. The case stunk. The guitar played terrible… always surprises me how poorly set up these guitars are… no wonder guys eventually part with them. A visit to Jesse at Clay Avenue Guitars fixed that; Jesse dials in all my strats and other guys I refer to Jesse even ask for “the Phil set-up.”

She’s a looker. She’s a NAMM Limited Edition, with the paperwork to back it up. In addition to the aforementioned color / finish / woodgrain, this guitar has a really nice CITES Rosewood board, AAA grade. (CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. It regulates the international movement of certain woods, including some species of rosewood.) The board has “vintage clay” facedots which take on a pearlescent orange-ish look… different from most other fret markers. The guitar has SANKO 6105 fret wire; I am normally not a fan of the tall, narrow frets which sometimes feel like “railroad” tracks under my fingers, but coupled with the 9.5” radius on this board – it feels quite comfortable to play.

This was the first NAMM guitar I added to my collection. From a pure playing standpoint, it sits somewhere in the middle of the pack. But guitars like this aren't always about being the best player in the room. Sometimes the story is what earns them a permanent place in the collection.

Sometimes you just gotta wait ‘em out.