Harley Benton ST-62LH BK Vintage Series

I own several high end guitars such as a Fender American Standard Telecaster, an Ibanez AS93 hollow body and a Martin acoustic.

I've been interested in trying a Stratocaster type guitar but did not want to spend about 1000$ Canadian dollars for a MIM Fender Strat.

With that being said, i had heard about Harley Benton's over the last year and watched a bunch of youtube videos and decided to buy the St-62LH Vintage series. I paid 150$ plus 75$ for the shipping and it took 12 days to arrive.

I have to say I cannot believe how well this guitar plays and sounds for only 150$. If did however have some issues on arrival. I was expecting Wilkinson pickups as advertised on the site but it had Roswell pickups.

The fret-board was extremely dry and the strings were corroded. I had to change the strings and condition the fret board. There was also a little bit of cosmetic damage on the neck but i am not too concerned about that.

Once I did these changes and slightly fixed the intonation the guitar
plays great and sounds even better. It's too bad the quality control was lacking because I would have given this guitar 5 stars across the board. In terms of value for the money I don't think it can be beat.

Thomann please improve your quality control and ship what you advertise on your site. I am still nonetheless quite impressed and will probably make another Harley Benton purchase in the future.

Cheers

Perhaps not the very best Strat type available, but in my personal opinion, once set up properly my Harley Benton ST-62 BK lefty now feels and plays far better than it should for just over £100!!! In a blind test I don't think there is much between my Player Stratocaster MIM (made in Mexico) costing £300 second hand). Playing on stage I would settle for either.
Harley Benton have really upped their game over the last few years.
If you are thinking of getting a Strat in your armoury you should give the ST-62 some real consideration - unless, of course, you are hung up on what is written on the headstock.

Here is a well-made Strat type guitar with vintage-y looks coupled with a flat radius fingerboard preferred by shredders but not an old teenager like me.
Sounds good, plays good. No issues here.
Much lighter and much more comfortable to play than the Tele type Harley Bentons. The latter are almost always too heavy even though they're indicated to be built with basswood which is supposed to be a light wood. Go figure. (Same issue with the modern Hagstrom basses which are also made with basswood. Heavier than you'd expect.)
Great inexpensive guitars if you can stand that volume knob right by the strings which impedes your picking/strumming hand. I always remove and relocate the volume knob on Strats. Even if you're as good as Jimi Hendrix, you simply cannot palm mute and play closer to the bridge with that knob getting in your way.