While making small talk with a new employee I walked down the line of guitars, taking just a moment to gaze at an Agile 9 sting, a Keith Urban Les Paul copy, a RIFF brand Les Paul Custom copy, a sorry looking Jay Tursor copy of a three tone sunburst strat, a 97 Jackson JS20 DK with a separating scarf joint, and a half dozen other less than inspiring instruments.
It looked like it was going to be a dry run in the music gear department, so I walked to the other side of the store to briefly scan the firearms, after which I made my way towards the exit.
The new employee who’d I’d been talking to before once again engaged me in conversation. As I stood listening, something made me look over his shoulder and notice how "funny" the bridge looked on the wrecked Jay Tursor strat, like it was aftermarket. The way it was tilted up at such an extreme angel revealed a thick block under the bridge plate. I asked the employee to hand it to me, just to satisfy my curiosity. Maybe there were actually some worthwhile aftermarket parts on this junker.
The second I had the guitar in my hands I knew the bridge was a two point, block saddle unit from an older Fender American Standard. Investigating further I could see that the staggered pickups were ALNiCo, the body was probably alder, and it had those sleek, sexy, tapered lines which only the genuine American Stratocasters seem to get right. Turning it over I observed that the neck plate said Fender, Corona California, and had the micro-tilt hole. I felt a strong desire to want to horse whip the person who attached that neck plate with common wood screws and a torx head. The tuners were likewise the block style Fender units of an earlier vintage.
All at once a spell entrapping me in a delusion had been lifted as I realized that this wasn't really an import basket case I held in my hands . . . it was in reality an American Standard Strat minus only it's neck! A Jay Tursor neck had been clumsily, one might say mockingly substituted in its place. What a fool I had been, tricked by those words "Jay Tursor" on the headstock. I was overcome by great excitement, though I struggled to not let my joy burst through and wreck the dour outward countenance I was struggling to maintain as I inspected the guitar. If I'd had a knitting needle in my pocket I'd have jabbed myself in the thigh for help. I'm not really good at bluffing, though putting on my best poker face, as nonchalantly as possible I asked the employee, “How much for this wreck?”
“We were trying to get it to work, but there’s something wrong with it,” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “This Jay Tursor sure is messed up. So how much for it? It'll give me a project to work on.”
He replied, “We’ll give it to you at our cost, which would be $42 after tax. We just want to get it out of here.”
Within two minutes I was walking out the door with this "junk" guitar. I could not believe I had just bought a loaded American Standard Strat body, plus the neck plate and tuners, for only $42! Oh . . . plus a very flamey Jay Tursor 21 fret neck with the nut attached with clear epoxy.
On the way home in the car I was already thinking about what I was going to replace the Jay Tursor neck with. I had a 22 fret rosewood neck from a 1997 Squire Affinity that I had modified to look like a Fender, and it would be perfect. I have several Squiers Strats of that vintage in my stable and they have excellent necks (pretty good bodies too).
Shortly after arriving home I went to work detaching the neck off the Fender body, then proceeded with a full breakdown and cleaning. In the process I definitely discovered that this was a 2005 Fender American Standard Stratocaster. It was all there (minus the neck of course), in completely stock configuration.
The Squier neck went on pretty painlessly and actually looks like it’s been on the Fender its whole life.
As I found the "Jay Tursor" hanging in the pawn shop. Would you have known what it was at first glance? There is a powerful lesson here in how much sway the shape of a headstock has over our perception of the entire instrument.
There's a special circle in hell reserved for people who use this type of hardware to attach a guitar neck.
Note how wonky these tuners are installed. Likewise, in subsequent pics you can see how haphazardly the guitar is strung, along with the radical maladjustment of the bridge. I don't believe this guitar was ever meant to be functioning and playable. It was like somebody just sloppily mocked it up, perhaps so they could pawn it as a complete instrument, or maybe for use as a wall hanger. Whoever assembled it, though I must give them credit for the effort they made in transferring all the Fender parts, clearly knew nothing about actually setting up a guitar.
Note how even the Fender string tree has been transplanted onto the Jay Tursor headstock. I'll wonder for a while what sort of misadventure befell the original Fender neck.
Apparently the Jay Tursor neck didn't want to fit so the "builder" was required to carve into its heel and remove some amount of material. Thank God they didn't carve into the Fender body to facilitate that blasphemous mating.
With the neck removed we can see what I really paid $42 for, which is is a fully loaded Fender American Standard Strat body, along with the neck plate and tuners.
This is how I date the guitar at 2005.
This guitar plays and sounds astonishingly good and I still can't believe I paid only $42 for it! 
