I posted this on another forum but:

This is a one for the story books so please bear with me!

I am a 47 year old guy and as a teenager like many other kids my age played guitar a little. A couple of friends and I had a “band”. I never was very good but they were not bad.

During this time which was about 30 years ago, a lady I knew was moving her daughter in an apartment for college. In a closet was left a guitar and since I was the only person she knew that played guitar, she asked if I wanted it. After looking at it I started to say no but she just wanted to get rid of it so I said yes.

It was painted this thick metallic green paint everywhere except the fret board, metal parts and pick guard. It looked kind of like a Strat but my very limited knowledge of Strats told me it was not. It didn’t say Fender anywhere on it and the peghead was much smaller than the ones I was used to seeing. Besides, who in their right mind would have done this to a Strat. The frets were worn with deep groove and I really didn’t think much of it.

After taking it home, took it apart, used stripper and took it down to bare wood. Some of the original finish must have been worn through prior to the green painting because some of the green paint had soaked into the wood in places. After removing all the green, I very badly applied a coat of polypropylene, let it dry and reassembled. I tried to play it a few times but the frets were worn so badly it buzzed beyond playability. Since this was a cheap fake there was no need to refret and I didn’t have the money for that anyway. So I just stuck it in a corner in my dad’s unfinished basement and forgot about it.

Life went on, put the guitars down, got married, had kids and all that good stuff. Every now and then would get the urge to playing again and a few years ago, the wife got me an acoustic for Christmas which I immediately started playing again and enjoying very much. It was amazing how the chords came back after so many years.

2 years ago, half the upstairs of my dad’s house burnt. Thankfully firefighters put the fire out without a total loss. Everything got soaked with water, even the guitar in the basement. When they started demolition to rebuild, just about everything in the basement was trashed. At one point during this period I just happened to remember the old fake guitar down there and had a dilemma whether to keep it or not. On a whim while talking to him one day, I told him to just leave it and I would get it some day and play around with it. He said ok but didn’t know if they had already thrown it out or not. Just so happens they hadn’t got to it that day. Another day or two and it would be ashes right now.

Fast forward to week before last. A colleague at work told me he was going to buy a new Telecaster. This sparked the memory of the old guitar in my dad’s basement I told him it’s story and how I would like to get it out, buy a good neck for it and building a nice guitar.

Last week I stopped by dad’s house on the way home from work, retrieved the old guitar and took it home. Later that night started surfing the net looking for a neck to put on it.

Then for kicks I looked at the serial number on the neck plate and found that if this were a real Strat, it would fall between 62 and 63. This had to be a coincidence in my mind. At that time I didn’t even know where Strat serial numbers were located. But the more I surfed and looked, the more the old guitar started looking like it could possibly be an original. Surfed more and found the neck date after late 62 is rubber stamped on the butt of the neck. Took the neck off and 2NOV62B was there. I almost fainted. It looked just like the pictures I had seen on the net.

I have since researched extensively, compared everything on the guitar with info I’ve found and there is no doubt, this old fake guitar is in deed an original 1962 Stratocaster.

The body date was pained over but after carefully removing the green paint and since the original finish was not disturbed inside the cavity lies the date 12/62. The pots are 6232. The neck date is stamped not penciled and is veneered, not a slab. The 3-way CRL switch has angled sides. Neck screws are fully threaded. The tuners are single line Kluson Deluxe with D-169400 PATENT NO. on bottom.

Now my current dilemma and what I ask advise for. What do I do with this treasure? I’m obviously not a vintage guitar collector and it doesn’t have the value to me it may have to others. I fully intend to sell it but don’t know since it doesn’t have the original finish would it be best to leave it as is or have it professionally restored. Which scenario would have the greater value?

I have pics if anyone is interested.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My advice to you is to:

1) Clean it up as best you can. Reassemble it, have the frets dressed, the neck straightened if necessary and the intonation set. Add a reproduction vintage headstock decal if you want then see how it grabs you. If you don't like it then go for the sale.

2) In reality it is probably worth more "partsed out" due to the stripping and lack of headstock decal. Post the individual pieces (body, pickups, pots, tuners, trem etc) on Ebay and you can make a fairly significant pile of cash.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

You don't know what to do with it mmm I would suggest you to give it away to me I don't mind having it

Sorry if I'm too direct, but my immediate advice would be...

Learn to be much more concise and to the point if you want a lot of people to read a post. Few will bother to read a novel.

As stated above, unless you want to restore the old guitar, I would sell the individual pieces on E-bay. Use the money for a new guitar (maybe even a new Fender).

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

Thanks for the advise dgonz, I will work on this! I realize it was rather long but some may be intested in the history. Thanks again!

Well, just a note. If you want a lot of views and responses to your post, it might help to cut it down a tad - that's all.

You're right - the history is very interesting. And, if you have those pics, I'm sure we'd all love to see them. I know I would.

Also - welcome to the forum. I see you've only posted a few, so I'm guessing you're new(re) here. Good group of people here. Me? I'm a pretty good guy but not the most politically correct and am an bit of a jerk at times, but I like to talk shop, help other people and learn some stuff in the process.

Please don't let my ramblings ever discourage you from posting things though, that's just me

Sorry, I did not see that you were new to the forum. Welcome to the forum.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

Hi Hogwildls, welcome to the Forum.

After all the mistreatment you '62 sure ain't going to be paying for a new house for your dad, I'm afraid. But it may still be worth something, and to respectfully differ from what others are saying I believe that if it has intrinsic collector value then it will be as a single unit, rather than partsed out on the net.

You have nothing to lose in this, so why not put in a phonecall or send an email to a rare guitar dealer and ask their advice on the restoration issue? They will know the best way to present this guitar to maximize its value.

The down side of that is that a dealer will advise in the hope of handling that guitar himself. So if he advises to leave it exactly as is, that may be because it's the best advice - or it may be because he wants to have restoration work done himself and so reap the markup it will yield. Unfortunately, without a lot more knowledge of that market than you or I have it is fairly hard to judge. Though I do have some comparable knowledge of the art market and in general "leave well alone" is often a good way to go when in doubt.

If you let us know roughly where you are then hopefully someone here can advise you of your nearest rare guitar dealer. Aside from that, this is probably as good a place as any for expert advise:

http://www.gruhn.com/

Please let us know how you get on!

Good luck - C

we heard a similar tale from someone a couple of months back who got ripped off by a vintage dealer because in his greed he rushed into a sale. Take your guitar to a few dealers with the line of 'i came into possesion of this 2 weeks ago, i want to get it restored'. Then try and swing the conversation round to will it lose value if i do that? Then its easy to get a aproximate value out of em. Vintage dealers do care about guitars, not about people. Spend a couple of months digging for info and a few more getting the guitar restored if its going to make you more money than it costs to do. Now is completely the wrong time to sell. I'd look at holding off until apr/may 09 if you can.

Hi and welcome to the forum....

I will have to agree with niki in this case if you're thinking of selling it....

Thanks for all the advice.

Ceri, I'm located in south east Missouri.

nikininja, time is not an issue. I've had it for 30 years. Another year or so is not going to hurt me!

One thing on my mind, if it is not worth that much, I may restore, keep it and play it. But on the other hand if it were worth a considerable amount, I couldn’t bring myself to play it in fear of doing something to it. In this case I think for myself I would be better off selling it and buying something else nice I could play without being afraid I was going to hurt its value. What are your thoughts on this?

I have some pics here: http://2wheeln.com/strat/collage.JPG

Haha! Actually, I find that rather beautiful. Personally, I'd keep it.

Since it has lost its finish I feel sure there is no monetary worth in refinning it. I bet your best course is to sell as is. And as Niki says, talk to several dealers before selling. The story (I believe) he's refering to from this Forum was a fella in South Africa who sold a Strat (in vastly better condition than yours) to a dealer in London for $13,000 (if I remember right?), only to see it on sale shortly after for $47,000.

But then, that's what dealers do: put the maximum possible markup on goods. They are not realtors: they don't work for a percentage.

Now don't get dollar signs floating before your eyes. Your guitar is not going to realise those kinds of prices. But I'm sure it would at the very least buy you a nice new top end Strat, if that was the way you wanted to go.

Be most interested to hear which way you decide to go.

Good luck - C

got to agree with keeping it. You will probably find that the cost of a pro putting it right comes somewhere near its value when finished. I've seen a 64 that was refinished going for £8000 but its in far better condition with the headstock logo's and perfect hardware. Fender may be interested in it for historic reasons, but i doubt they pay for such items.

On a side note. Anyone notice the routing in the bridge pickup. Is that unusual for that period? I thought the early 60's guitars were minimum routing like the 50's ones.

I was - Doug

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"I don't trust nobody, not even myself" - Willie Dixon