Well, envy's not a nice thing, is it? So I'll just go and stand in the rain for a while...

Now, the completist in me needs you to pickup an '84 to continue the cycle if you wouldn't mind, please. And if you do it soon you may still get a ridiculous deal on that one, too.

I think this is called "living life vicariously"...

Cheers - C

Stand in the rain, fine, but no wet T shirt pictures, please, this is not that kind of a forum, thank you.

I thought those two had an interesting story in that I brought them home the same day! Snuck 'em into the house so my mother wouldn't know that I was buying guitars.

But I did lie about the '74. It slipped my mind that it has had 4 different pickguards! It came with a black pickguard (the walnut colored Strat was the first to get the black pgs). I have never liked black plastic on my Strats, so I put on one that had a fake rosewood look (I could probably dig out a pic of that), but it looked bad as it wore down. Then it had a white one. It's got one from Carvin now, that the eagle eyed observer will see has the early-60s screw pattern. Oops.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

I would too!

OK, now what would that $300 be in today's money? Some economics guy will know exactly what 300 in 1956 would equate to today.

About $2300

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Those are some beautiful guitars Orville. Nice to see them so well cared for.

Seems like if you take inflation into account, strats are a better deal nowadays?

I do have another question for you.

I have read that, although Leo didn't insist on it, that many 50's strat bodies were from a single piece of wood? have you found that to be the case? I would imagine the tone and sustain on those ones would be beyond sweet.

I have only seen one really old strat, and it looked like 3 pieces to me.

Could you dig one out, i would love to see it?

First off, here's the pic (freshly scanned in) with the faux rosewood pickguard. It was cool for awhile, but then my fingers rubbed off a bunch of it!





My '54 is a one-piece body, and I have seen a few other one-piece bodied early Strats, but it's not a high percentage. The percentage is a lot higher than what's found in the next few decades, however.

If you look in some of the Strat history books, you can see some early one-piecers. I do have a one-piece body mid-seventies Strat, one of only 3 I've ever seen or heard about.

I'm sorry to say that I believe it's a cosmetic thing and not really a tone thing.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

I really like the look of that, maybe I'll put one on my P-Bass.

thanks for the info on the one piece bodies. Nice to have a source who has direct experience on this stuff. I always wondered how pronounced an effect the glue has on things like sustain and tone.I wonder if thats something a guy could request when getting a CS jobby?

Yes, a one-piece body can be ordered as a Custom Shop option. They've done many (some for Eric Johnson, of course). Warmoth has one-piece replacement bodies available, so they are not at all like Hen's Teeth.

The glue does not hurt anything. It becomes part of the wood. Your pickups have a much bigger influence on Tone IMO.

Here's a one-piece from 1975:

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Thanks again Orville, you always answer my dumb questions without making me feel dumb!

And the super nice pics don't hurt either!!

Ok, very good. Is that not awfully close to Custom Shop money for a Strat? I'm talking something like the Time Machine series. Are we in the ballpark?

I kinda skipped over all the posts on this subject because I am of the opinion that the whole vintage thing has gotten way out of hand.I have had my share of strats over the years and have played many that were "vintage"
my feelings are that they are no better then the new american strats,,,,
the best strat I have ever played or had is a 91 Jeff Beck sig model,,no other even came close,,,
In the 70's when I was a youngster you could hardly give a strat away,nobody wanted them. and now they want an arm and a leg for them,,
I had a 71 strat,last of the 4 bolt necks for a while, ,I traded a guy a jacket for it,it was in ruff shape,rusted and finish was cracked.I had it painted I changed the bridge because of the rust and discarded the original parts the original neck plate got changed too,because of rust,,along with the original tuners.the pickups and most of the electronics were original,,and the body and neck,,
I sold that for 2000.00 on ebay...no way in hell it was worth that much,im glad I got what I did of course,but it was a guitar I wouldnt have even considerd taking to a gig after I got my 91 JB model,,,now you may have guys that swear by the tone of a 57 or a 66 or a 71,and they may be right,,truth is they hummed and buzzed sumthin awful and you couldnt keep them in tune with any kind of whammy use,,the 3 bolt necks that are going for just as much on ebay today were just as bad,,the neck would drift sideways,hum and buzz like crazy
todays guitars are made for todays players and todays equipment(amps and effex)and in my opinion are better suited for use today
I love the history of Fender products and have been a strat player since I got that 71,but there is really no reason to believe that older ones are better then todays models

There's a few things about the classic Strats(50's early 60's) that make them stand apart a bit though.

They were finished with different materials, Nitrocellulose lacquers, and no Fullerplast-which is polyester based. This affects them in a couple of ways.
Some people feel that the new finishes are way too thick, and in fact inhibit or smother the guitar's natural vibrations. Also that this Poly cocoon prevents the guitar's wood from aging in the same way. these are probably less important to a solid body electric than a vintage acoustic, but I would say they are a factor. As the wood ages it seasons, and this affects its resonance, so these olkd guitars have a 40 or 50 year headstart on that too.

next is the electronics were made using some materials and methods that are not available today and/or some materials are illegal to use in the manufacturing process anymore. Now given the subjective nature of tone, this may or may not be a wash, but a lot of people really savour the tonal result of the magic cocktail that was the vintage strat. of coarse this is so subjective, that a lot of people may prefer the tone from the current build, but they definitely are a bit different.

i agree that the new guitars are top notch too, for me the magic one is the Eric Johnson maple model, though I really like the Jeff Beck, but i haven't played anything older than the 70's, and that 3 bolter was just fine(prefer my 94 Am Std though.) But I can't personally compare with a first run 50's strat.

Anyway I do think the vintage thing IS out of hand, but lets face it, as soon as non musicians with a ton of money get involved they stop being musical instruments, and they become a comodity.

right about the thick finishes....and this is part of the reason that one strat will sound diffrent from another strat of the same year
I post this link to a beautiful read on vintage fender finishes with a lot of pic examples,,,i find this incredibly interesting for some odd reason...lol
another reason for sound differences between 2 guitars of the same period is the handwound pickup,,any variance of tension in the winders work or sometimes not the same amount of windings would greatly affect the sound.
so even back in the early days you were not sure of what you were getting
with what we have learned since the conception of our fav guitar,we can now make the ultimate strat...
I consider the important things to be :
Kind of finsih
Kind of Wood used
KInd of materials used in the making of the pickups
2 point trem
Locking tuners staggerd to eliminate string trees
Roller Nut


please check out this link ,as it may blow yer mind


http://www.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html