Lucky for me the insurance got me two MIM's and a Frontman 212R.

Well. This ain't a Strat but I don't hang out at the Les Paul forum so much... Anyway, my friends dad, who happens to be a very known and succesful musician in Finland, has a Les Paul. 52nd Les Paul ever made. He bought it from one other well known finnish musician.
Ok. The guitar is awesome, I have played it. He said it's the best Les Paul in Finland, and I believe it is. But. The guy he got it from went and changed the original top from the body because he tought it was ugly. So that guitar could be worth hundreds of thousands I guess, and I think it also would add the price that not one, but two famous finnish musicians have been using it. But that one guy went and replaced the top, reducing the price so much that now it's just a guitar.

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Fender American DLX Hss Strat RWOP->
Biyang OD-8->
Marshall JCM800 4211 -combo->
THE sound;)

At one point it seemed a lot of guys were stripping their 50's gold tops down hoping there would be a nice, flamey piece of maple under there One of the ways you can tell without doing that is by checking the binding inside the cutaway. In the 50's, it wasn't uniform, a portion of the top was visible between the binding and the mahogany body. While it doesn't guarantee the whole top was like that, its an easier way to find out than stripping the whole thing down

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The mind is like a parachute; it doesn't work unless its open-FZ

just like manjiha...i used to drink heavy too....mostly everyday...in 2000 i bought a mexi strat brand new from m.f. (black/maple fretboard) back then i knew (in my drunken haze) nothing about truss rod adjusting and, intonation n stuff like that(setup). i rarely played it and diddnt really care for it that much cos it was a mexican one. i changed the strings to 11s and could never get it to sound right or tune right etc. but it never got scratched or beat up either. anyways, in 06 i traded it for 2 very broken laptops that with some expense i managed to save one of them. now that im sober and have more knowledge of guitar setup n stuff, i regret selling the guitar now. in my teen years, i owned gibson sg's and many others but the only fenders i ever owned then were a mustang and 2 coranados but always wanted a stratocaster so, the 2000 mexi was the 1st strat i ever owned (i also regret selling the mustang and coranados too but, that was years ago.

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2009 american deluxe ash stratocaster

2009 epiphone es-335 dot.
2009 65 drri amp
2009 fender vibro champ-xD amp.
2009 takamine g-4400 acoustic/electric guitar

1980 fender harvard reverb 1 amp

[quote="davededude"]just like manjiha...i used to drink heavy too....mostly everyday


Maybe its a Michigan thing...I was born and raised in Flint (well Burton just south of Flint)...most my band playing days was from the mid 70's to mid 80s up there

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2008 Am. Std. Strat
2008 Am. Deluxe Strat
2010 Am. Deluxe Strat
2011 Am. Std. Strat
2011 Am. Std. Strat
Hot Rod Deluxe
Hot Rod Deville 410

Back about 2 1/2 years ago, I was playing my beloved Strat in the car on a road trip. As we were pulling up up to the hotel, I sat it on the car seat next to me. I got out and opened the car door on the other side to get it out and WHAM!!! It slid out of the car and hit the hotel's brick patio just under the bottom strap button on the back. It broke off a bit of the poly shell and in a few tiny places, the paint, so you can actually see the wood. I was heartbroken for a while, but now I realize it makes it mine

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'07 Squier Affinity Sunburst Strat SE
Fender Frontman 25R
Boss DS-1 Distortion
Danelectro D-2 Fab Overdrive
Delta Lab Multi Effects

back in the late 80's we were in the studio setting up to do some tracks.
next thing we know theres a nice bottle of 151 going around.
all of a sudden we were hammered.
one of the guys brought a pellet pistol to the studio for whatever reason.
we hung a martin D something from a boom stand.
the martin with the gold plated hardware. we set it on the other side of the room and fired shot after shot until the neck and body became two pieces.
never did find out whos guitar that was.