Unable to find a vintage Mandocaster (or to afford one)? Fear not; if you dig a little, you can get the Fender name on a reasonably priced mandolin. For a few of the early years of the 21st century, the company imported electrics from Korea: the hollow, 8-string FM-52E; the semihollow FM-60E and FM-61E (5 and 8 strings, respectively); and the piezo-sporting FM-62SE, whose resemblance to a certain other (and, in my opinion, superior) brand of acoustic/electric mandolins has been well noted and may or may not be more than purely coincidental.
    I've heard from several players, and the response is mixed. Some folks have reported intonation problems with the C string on the FM-60E. The FM-52E isn't much as an acoustic mandolin, but does hold its own as an electric, considering its very reasonable cost. Although these instruments have been discontinued, secondhand examples abound on eBay and Craig's List.
     Here's a sad tale: Early in 2002, the Arbiter Group, Fender's distributor in the UK, issued a very limited quantity of an instrument called the SB-4. These were also made in Korea, but had 4 strings and looked a lot more like the Mandocaster than any of the models made for the U.S. market. A companion 8-string model, the SB-8, was also sold in the UK. They were available in "Sonic Blue" and "Fiesta Red." A few of these instruments were sold in European countries outside the UK (they've been sighted in Germany and Sweden) with the model numbers FM-984 and FM-988. But do you think they're still being made? Ha! Do you think they'll make any more? Ha! Do you think anyone at Fender UK or the Arbiter Group will even tell me how many of them exist? Ha!
     Then, early in 2008, a batch of FM-984s and FM-988s appeared in the United States. Most of these appeared to be finished in "Seafoam Green," but they might actually have been Sonic Blue instruments with yellowed clearcoat. Research reveals that these instruments originated from Fender EDC BV in the Netherlands. Rejected for being the wrong color, they languished in a Dutch warehouse for five years or more before being sold to the Musical Instrument Reclamation Corporation in Tennessee, which stamped then "USED" and sold them wholesale to U.S. dealers, most of whom immediately sold them on eBay—where demand was higher than anticipated: the first one sold for $1,000.
     Finally, there's the FM-60S, an acoustic/electric sold only in Japan.