I thought I would post to see if anybody had any info about my guitar. Don't want to sell it or anything like that just wondering if it was a rare guitar or not. I have looked and I can't find anything out there any where about it.

I know there was some strat plus and strat deluxe made in this year(1989) that was graffiti yellow, but my guitar is just a USA standard strat, but it is graffiti yellow. It does have the TBX tone knob, but other than that, it is standard. No special tuners, no lace pickups, etc.

I have had this guitar for 20 years and I have never really thought about guitar history, just bought it and played it, but I am curious now about this model. I have posted on forums across the net and I always get the same response that it is a strat plus or deluxe, but this is just a standard. That's about the only thing that i do know about it. Thanks to anyone who can offer some info.
Dale

You may need to take the neck off and the pickguard to see what markings are under the hood. You can tell the year from the serial numbers and the markings on the neck and the neck pocket will give you an idea if they were made around the same time. Also the serial number will give you an indication of where it was made and also potentially what model you have.

I do love that Yellow color though.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the graffiti yellow colour on Strats. as well. Probably because you don't see too many around - in fact, I've never actually seen a Strat that colour in real life, only in photos.

Oh...and that was my two-hundredth post!

Thanks for the comments. I have had to remove the middle pickup to send off to be restored because it has died on me, while I have it all apart I will check for markings inside pick guard and remove the neck and check there also.

This is some info that I have found out, and this is what I was told when I bought the guitar.

When I originally purchased the guitar from a local music store 20 years ago, the prior owner of the guitar was a younger partner with an older gentleman in the local store. According to the younger guy, who tracked me down about 6 months later, that was his personal guitar, and the older guy sold it by mistake. He offered me a Clapton model in return if I wanted to trade it back in to him. I told him I was not interested in trading it back in, but would like to keep it. So he told me that if I was going to keep it to hang on to it because there was only two like it that he knew of.

Before I finish what he told me, I do know from a vintage collector that during that time they made graffiti yellow strat plus which had the roller bridge, lace pickups, tbx knob, and the lock tuners. In 1989 they finished out the left over parts on a line called a deluxe strat and they had the lace pickups and the tbx knob, but no roller bridge or lock tuners. He said there were around 400 of these deluxes made. But he knew nothing about just a graffiti yellow standard american strat made in 1989.

So back to the original owner. He told me that he had bought the guitar at an auction and there was only two of its kind then. He said that fender had painted two standard strat bodies graffiti yellow by accident and decided to go ahead and build the two guitars and sell them. The only parts they had left from the original plus and deluxe version was the tbx knobs so they installed everything else standard and put the tbx knobs in there and sold them.

He said one had a solid maple neck and sold to a guy from overseas, and he bought this one which has maple with a rosewood fretboard. Of course at that time I just figured he was making it all up, but now I wonder if there was some truth to his story after all. A few months ago I saw on eby the only other graffiti yellow american standard strat I have ever saw besides mine, and it was exactly like mine, year, color, everything except it has a solid maple neck. The ad stated very rare 1989 graffiti yellow standard american strat and it was located overseas. I tried to contact the guy but never got a reply.

I would like to know if there is any of these guitars out there, if there is I have not seen them. Thanks again for the comments...

Wow!! I do know that Grafitti Yellow and Taos Turqouise were very rare- most notably in the plus line. If you have a GY Am. Std, never ever let go of it my friend- you have one of the holy grail rare colours of the time. Congrats- The last I saw something like that, there was a NOS Taos Turqoise Plus- all candy- dead mint as anything sell in Australia for $2600.

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BTW, welcome to the forums

Would you be so kind to grace us all with pics?

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Thanks for comments. Yea I will be glad to post some pictures. I have got the middle pickup out right now and it should be back in a week or so. I am going to replace all the screws when i put the pickup back in. When I get all that done I will post some pictures of it. Thanks again for the info

Welcome Maxfield. I'm a big fan of the graffiti yellow Strat. Probably because I don't have one.... I saw this one on ebay last month.
http://cgi.ebay.com/1980s-fender-stratocaster_W0QQitemZ160399791914QQcategoryZ156025QQcmdZViewItem?ml=2
Regardless of its rarity the more provenance you have with yours the more valuable it will be. Orignal receipts, pictures etc... It will be impossible to verify the original owner's story without some documentation. Post some pics I'd love to see it.

Nice color! A friend of mine had a GY strat plus back in the day and sold it. I could shoot him for not telling me!!!

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60th Anniversary AD Strat, Deluxe Nashville Tele, Player's P Bass. Mesa/Boogie Mk IV combo, Marshall JCM800, 1960A cab, Genz Benz El Diablo 60, Genz 2x12" cab, too many neat little practice amps and kit projects!

I've always liked Graffiti Yellow as well... closest I came to it was losing at an auction for an '81 Monaco Yellow ICS Strat.

There was actually an '89 GY standard Strat with a maple board selling in my local vintage guitar shop a few weeks ago. There was no way I could swing it, but I thought I'd file it away for future reference as guitars of that period tend to sit on the rack for a while there (lots of competition from very serious collectibles)... of course, it had gone within a few days. The guys at the store said that it was the only time they'd seen a standard Strat in that colour; occasionally they'd had a Strat Plus or Deluxe, but not that.

MY 89 Strat Plus was yellow until I had it painted black by a proffessional in 90. I cannot say I would have ever thought it would be a rarity. It was hard to look at, and cheaper than the black strat I wanted at the time.

Sweet colour mate, looking forward to some pics

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My Rig: Guitar into Pedals then into Amps and out into Speakers.

check craigslist st louis missouri there is a graffiti yellow strat for sale for i think 450 he says its a mim. just thought i would throw that out there

Very cool ax indeed with a nice story to go with it. Maybe there is a slim chance Mike Eldred could help you out if you post it down there in his room. The graffiti yellow came about because Jeff Beck ordered a few in that color with a few mods and they wanted it to be his artist series guitar but he declined at the time so they made it the Plus series.

Drmaxfield, I too have a graffiti yellow strat I purchased 20 years ago! American Standard with the TBX and rosewood neck! Awesome tone and I can't remember seeing another just like it.

When I bought mine, the guitar sales guy told me this 'great' story about some Fender employee overhearing Jeff Beck commenting that it would be cool to have a strat the color of the '32 Ford in the movie, American Grafitti." Then, when Jeff was presented with the model and asked to put his signature on the line, he refused and Fender was left with a bunch of guitars that color. Well, I thought it was a pretty good story, but I have yet to hear any confirmation and have always wnondered if the guy was just practicing his creative story telling...

Anyway, I love my guitar and I am going to try and post my pics with this post. I have very little skills when it comes to adding pictures to posts. Good to hear someone else appreciates that color. I was 19-20 when I bought it and it was the brightest color I could find...(ahh, youth!)

[img C:\Documents and Settings\jbennett2\My Documents\My Pictures\Guitar related Pictures][/img]

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I'm the best guitarist in my bedroom.