I bought a white American Standard Strat today, left-handed. I really like it. I played it for a long time over two visits to the guitar store, along with some other guitars including an American Standard Telecaster, and pulled the trigger.

It's a great playing guitar. It sounds awesome clean, and is really easy to play. I'm not a great guitarist, but I've been playing a long time, and this is a guitar that I won't outgrow. So that's a cool feeling. I can get a real snappy sound out of it when I play blues lead type stuff clean.

One thing about this guitar that is really interesting is that the neck is flamed maple. The dude at the store said he hasn't seen an American Standard with a flamed maple neck before, and I checked the other Strats in the store and couldn't find one. So that's cool. I would have bought it anyway, but that's a neat bonus.

The case is really nice. Looks like you could drive a tank over it, and it locks. So that's sweet. They somehow lost the left-handed trem bar and are ordering one for me. I've never used one, so I'm happy to wait.

The store has a promotion in april that you get 10% of the cost of the guitar you buy back in a gift card, so I get to think about what to spend my $100 on. Some kind of pedal would be cool.

So that's that. Thanks for listening. I'm super happy with it and although I haven't posted much I was on a work trip over the last few days and read tons of comments here in the evenings so I thought I'd post back something.

Great score...pics would be even better.

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

Good score on the American Std. But . . . we must have pics or it simply didn't happen.

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2008 MIA Standard Strat 3-tone Sunburst
2007 Taylor 310 Acoustic
Fender Blues Junior NOS Amp
Digitech Bad Monkey OD pedal

Welcome!

So where's the pictures?

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You dig?

Here's 3 pictures. Another thing I didn't mention about having a brand new guitar is that the plastic over the pick guard is hard to pull off. If I want to be sure I got it, I'd have to pull the knobs off and unscrew the pick guard. I'll probably do that one day. I know some plastic is left under the knobs. The sticker on the back advertising the strings is also super hard to peel off. It peels off like a paper sticker leaving glue and thin paper behind. Not a big deal but I was expecting some nice plastic easy to remove sticker.

The strap that came with it is interesting to me too. I have a strap that looks the same that I bought 15 years ago because it was the cheapest strap at the store. This new one looks identical, but is nicely padded and is leather on the back (possibly fake?). I really like it.

I'm loving this guitar more and more as the afternoon progresses. No regrets here at all.

Here it is from the side. Not a good view but I liked the picture:



Here's a basic view:



The neck. It doesn't show as nicely on the picture. You can see the flamed maple but the shimmer doesn't come through so well. EDIT: I wrote just now that the shimmer isn't pronounced, but I came back to edit because I just held it up to natural light and rocked it back and forth and that is a beautiful flamed maple. I'm so happy with that. It's really pretty. Dang.



Thanks for looking! I'm going to go play some more.

SergeantStedenko.......I salute you!!

Enjoy mate, that's a purty geetar!!

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speak slowly I'm a drummer too!!

And I proudly lack a stick or a kazoo up my arse...........

Sweet looking Strat dude.
What's the color?
Olympic white?

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He who dies with the most Strats wins.

Something else of interest. My serial number starts with Z8. So the guitar is US built in 2008. I wonder if I should be a bit irritated to be buying a new guitar that was made 3 years old, thinking it's quite new.

I like the instrument a lot, so I'm not worried about that, but it seems kind of weird. Is that common to have that kind of lag between the year of manufacture and the sale?

It is new for all practical purposes. It was waiting all this time for you to give it a good home. Great looking axe by the way.I've got an 08 too.Wonderful instruments. Welcome to the forum.............Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

mike,

did the price reflect the age?
usually when a guitar has been setting in a shop that long, the price drops a bit.
now, seeing that its a lefty, from what ive seen your lucky to have found one.
a lot of manufactures arent "lefty friendly".

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Nice looking guitar. Welcome To the forum.

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Vintage Hotrod '57 Strat, 81 G&L L2000 Series E Bass, Fender Musicmaster Bass Amp.

Welcome aboard, Sarge! Sweet lookin' axe!!!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

That's a sweet lookin' axe there Sgt.....I have one the same color from about '93.
I really like that grain on the neck.

The Olympic White/Rosewood Board combo reminds me one of the early CBS-era axes used by Jimi Hendrix in the mid-to-late 1960s.





From 1968 and onwards, Jimi's preference moved to the maple fingerboard models.

This is one of of the reasons I love it. I'm left-handed, and I know Hendrix played a restrung righty, but playing a white strat left reminds me of him. Not that I'm trying to be Hendrix, but I like him a lot so I thought it was cool.