I am not that old but i keep hearing from the old timers that Stratocasters were around 100 to 300 dollars back then.

I even read that Eric Clapton got blackie for 100 dollars.

There still are some entry level guitars for $100.00. Granted they are made offshore somewhere but they are a hundred bucks.

The Stratocaster debuted at 249.50 iirc

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

$329 in 1972 and the only choice was the finish and fretboard!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I remember it was a few hundred or so in the seventies and it came with the hardcase. Except the jazzmaster at a couple of stores I went to a lot was about a hundred or so more and case extra the little mustangs were pretty inexpensive and again case extra. Iremember one store I went to in 1973/74 maybe 75 still had a couple nos coronados one with vibrato(like the one I just sold) and one without were "on sale" as they had had them for years in stock they were less at the time then strats just to get rid of them.wish I had I didn'y buy my 67 until 1980 and sold it a year ago now. Great guitars designed by rossmeisel of rickenbacker fame. A store in riverside Californiaa back in the seventies use to buy other stores over/old stocks and it was a fun place to go.

I bought my first new Stratocaster in 1970. It was a hardtailed, ash bodied sunburst with a rosewood neck. With the hardshell case, it was $294 (not including tax). I bought it in NYC on 48th Street.

I bought the cheapest model they had as any color other than sunburst was $20 more; the cost of any with a maple fingerboard was $20 more; and if you wanted one with a tremolo, you guessed it, $20 more!

I wonder what's left of this guitar today.

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You dig?

A 100.00 Are you kidding My first Strat cost over double that in the late sixty's used.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Hello Anarchy in the forums,

Got my first used strat in the 70's
paid about $200 sold it for $200.
In '83 got my first new one got it for $375
on sale at Russo's Music in Trenton, NJ.
Sold it last year for $1500, it was perfect.
They're getting pricier.

Cheers.

And don't forget the used market. My "Strat" is a '90's Peavey Predator I bought off ebay for $100. Made in USA.



It's prefectly giggable dead stock.

The last MIM Strat I bought used a few months ago was only a $150 expense.

$300 in custom color with vibrato in about '68, per old price list. No other options available.

However, in today's cash, that would equal about $2500 at least, wages-to-wages and all.

So, a new American-made Stratocaster is less expensive now than forty-plus years ago.

Wish I could remember.... I'm only 27. Wish they were again.

CC

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Fender Stratocaster (parts build)
Fender Telecaster 72 Custom RI
Fender Telecoustic Deluxe
Gretsch Electromatic Pro-Jet
Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
Gibson ES-135
Zenith Type-17
Marshall 70's JMP Superbass 100w
Blackstar HT-5

I got my first strat in 1991, American Standard, it was $499 - My dad bought me new Sunburst Am. Std in 1997, and it was $549 - In 1998, I bought a MIA Tele (Inca Silver) and a new hotrod deluxe, the guy knew me and cut me a deal, I paid $850+tax for both - Now, 11 years, later, you cant even get the amp at that price!

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

$285 in 1972. My hardshell case came from Ess & Ess in NY, It was another 30 bucks. I still have that too. I still have it. I've never seen a new Strat for 100 bucks.

I've heard the stories of EC buying a bunch of Strats in a Nashville shop for $100 each. You can find those tales all over the net. This is from an interview (I added the bold type) . . .

"Right after I'd seen Steve Winwood playing his white Strat," begins Eric, "I was in Nashville and I went into this shop called Sho-Bud where they had stacks of Strats going for virtually nothing because they were so unfashionable and so unwanted. I bought a big pile of them all for a song - they were really cheap, like three or $400 each - and I took them home and gave them out. I gave Steve one, I gave Pete Townshend one, I gave George Harrison one and I kept a few. I made Blackie out of a group of them; I took the pickups out of one, the scratchplate off another and the neck off another and I made my own guitar - a hybrid guitar that had all the best bits from all these Strats.