According to George Blanda of Fender, he made one red and two pewter Clapton Signature Stratocaster prototypes in 1986. They had serial numbers V000007, V000008 and V000009. These were presented to Clapton who apparently used them for recording August and for stage work throughout 1986 and 1987. The pewter Strat V000009 in this lot is one of these prototypes. (According to Lee Dickson, the red prototype was given by Clapton to English cricketer Ian Botham as a gift in exchange for his bat.) This guitar originally had a 21-fret neck and an 'Original Contour Body' decal on the headstock and was pictured on the cover of A.R. Duchossoir's book, with that neck in 1988. The original 21-fret neck was subsequently exchanged for a 22-fret neck, put on by Mike Stevens of Fender Custom Shop later that year. This guitar with its present neck served as Clapton's main stage guitar during his 1989 Royal Albert Hall season. It remained as the back up guitar with the introduction of the black signature models in mid-1990.

Clapton used the 21-fret prototype during a gig at Philadelphia in September 7th, 1988. He also used a 22-fret candy green Strat for slide on "Motherless Children" featuring Mark Knopfler on a Dakota Red Telecaster.

As of September 21st, EC definitely used the Pewter prototype now fitted with the 22-fret Stevens flamed neck. The other 22-fret Pewter guitar sported a birdseye neck and served as a backup to the "flamed" neck prototype.

Since that time Clapton relies on his two Pewter Strats, one of which has been used for the rest of the Knebworth show after a string break occurred in the middle of "Before You Accuse Me". Later, the flamed maple neck has been put on a black alder body made by Jay W. Black. This guitar has been used extensively by Clapton until 1993.

Great info chromeface! I never heard of a second grey propotype anywhere else, and that is after having collected just about every guitar magazine publishing anything on EC I could get my hands on. Where do you get this stuff?