My '89 American Standard was pre-drilled for Sperzels. It had the standard sealed tuners stock, but had the hole drilled for the Sperzel pin. I changed them with no mod to the neck. Seems that era of Strats were upgrade ready.(swimming pool rout, etc.) It has slowly returned to stock over the years.

Yeah I live in Phoenix but will look at the Atlanta craigslist a lot becuase I know people there that play guitar, so I can have them pick it up for me if I find any good deals.

I sure would like to see this Strat closer. Most 87-88 Strats of this style had a plain white pickguard. My guess is it is an American Standard that was special ordered with the Sperzel, thus not fitted with the string trees. For sure not a Plus because they had it well underway with the Jeff Beck Strat in the making. I have owned a few of the very earliest Plus, with a low E4 serial number and split Wilkinson nut. I have seen American Standard Deluxe Strats with Gold Laces and not locking tuners or roller nut, (Fender never introduce the other Silver/Silver/Blue Laces in late 89 on the DX Plus), so my guess, special ordered American Standard with no string trees and locking tuners, which someone replaced the pickguard. Sure would like to see a close up of the nut to make sure it not been tampered with and a peek under the hood to look over the solder joints!

JasonSD, man what a keen eyes! LOL!!

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The craigslist ad says it has a floyd rose bridge, which sounds later than 87 or 88. More like 90-91. I don't know if he's the original owner, but maybe it's a partscaster.

JasonSD
I think he may have thought the stock two pivot tremolo was a Floyd Rose, that was my take. I let him know there was a discussion about it here, so maybe he will chime in....

If it had a Floyd Rose there would be some evidence of it around the nut. I've never messed with Floyd Rose Systems, but I believe they all had a locking nut and when removed, there are drill holes and patch marks...

Well, Fender had a floyd rose bridge on the strat plus deluxe and ultra series. It wasn't the standard floyd rose whammy bar. But the strings locked in like a standard floyd rose. And those guitars didn't have locking nuts, just rollernuts. Would like to see a nice pic of the bridge.

See if it looks like this


That's from Xhefri's site, hope he doesn't mind me linking it.

M<an the picts look like it has a standard bridge....Sure wish there were more picts so we could see the neck plate as well. The color in the picts is not too clear either. I wonder.....7-Up Green is darker than that.

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xhefri,




I was sent this pic of the bridge, American Standard bridge...cowgirl decal

he sent this one too, I wanted to see if any drill holes were visible in the string tree/nut area,

I'd like to see under the hood too.

Does the skunk stripe surrounding the truss rod adj on the headstock look odd to anyone else?

It seems that colour looks like Taos Turqoise to me, and the guard/pickups arent original:


...and the little blank where the nut is- leads me to belive that there was once a Wilkinson nut in there at one stage:


It looks like a high possibility that this strat was actually a Strat Plus that has since been modified quite extensively. Does it have a trem setter installed in the trem cavity? and does one of the tone knobs have a wee "bump" when your dialling around the "5" position?

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We need to see the nut close up. What little is shown of the headstock also makes it look suspicious. Maybe someone cut a piece of wood and then filled in the edge to install a standard nut.... The bridge is not a Floyd Rose...so I wonder how much the guy really knows about this guitar?

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Steve if the fhoe sits wear it, my SPD also has a glossy neck, I've had this guitar for a long time & didn't know that I had something special until just recently I hope that in time it will become as valuable as my 61 SG custom, I can't believe what the asking price for that guitar is today
sparky

yeah the truss rod opening looks like maybe it's cut flat, like it used to have a rollernut. If it's flat that would make it a lot easier to ID.

The pickups are staggered poles, so they could be TX Specials or......

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