1972. It was a graduation present from my parents. I still have it.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

This was my first Stratocaster:



I got it November 1, 1976.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

my first strat is a Surf Green 62 AVRI. Got it for christmas last year, its a 2009 so i think i was the last year they made it in that color

Pretty much. Fender had all kinds of cool models back then; Big Apple Strat, Lonestar Strat, Roadhouse Strat...my store never had them though. Now I've got a Candy Cola '09 American Standard with a maple fretboard. I almost put a David Gilmour pickguard in it. I had ordered it when I ordered the strat. I liked the way the stock pickups sounded through my amp so much that I sent the pickguard back and used the refund for effects pedals instead. David Gilmour is awesome, but those ivory EMGs combined with the pearloid pickguard looked terrible.
Barf

My first Strat was actually a Chinese Squier. Sometime in the 80s. I wasn't playing much electric guitar back then, and had my Charvel for the bit of playing I was doing. But I've loved Strats for as long as I can remember, so I bought the Squier on sale from Musical Exchanges (£99.00). Just so I could say I had a Strat really. And it was terrible - although to be fair, I didn't know anything about setting up Strats back then. Bending strings would screw up the tuning, and using the tremelo resulted in a voyage into the unknown, where anything could happen - none of it particularly musical!

Still have it, and its been a valuable learning guitar for me. I learned setting up on it, experimented with different pickups. Upgraded the hardware etc etc.. all the things you do.. It's scarred in a few places by my inexpert tool handling in the past. Right now it has the neck and middle pickups from my Highway Strat on it, and a hot Seymour Duncan single coil at the bridge. The worst thing about it is the huge thick neck on it - feels like a baseball bat. In every measurable way, the Fender Strats I bought after it are vastly superior, but I love that old black Squier. It's my 'go to, at home' guitar, usually thick with dust as it's never in a case. I just pick it up and noodle when I'm watching the TV. You can steal any of my other Strats, and I'll just replace them. But if you stole my crappy old Squier, I'd hunt you down and exterminate you. And your family too - just to make sure I eradicated the whole gene pool..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

A 1995 MIM Stratocaster HSS Special. The one with 1 volume and 1 tone and a coil splitter switch for the humbucker and black pickguard and pu covers. The finish was sunburst but the back was totally black. A cost cutting measure I dont think they do anymore.

I really regret trading it in for an Ibanez Talman

I rember my first strat which was my first guitar too as being a fender MIM standard. It was black with rosewood neck. Think it was 98. Went to a store with a budget and idea of getting a squier, couldn't play but got someone else to play both as well as holding it myself. A friend and I both agreed the MIM was superior and so that's where the cash went, the Extra budget was worth it. Although now te standart squier models are the cost the MIM standards cost back then. I sold it two years later after replacing it with a MIA lonestar, which I wish I still had.

I had always wanted to play and had just been made redundant from my job along with everyone else. So I used some of the extra money I got in the pay off to buy a guitar. I thought I would have a lot of spare time coming up, although that turned out to not be the case.

I hope that MIM is still making music out there and wish it well.

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Fender MIA Standard Strat, MIM Tele Deluxe 72 RI , CIJ Jazzmaster.
Gibson ES-335, Danelectro 56 Pro, Taylor 214CE

I picked it up early 1976...but it was made in 1975. I'm glad I still have this one. I almost went for the Sunburst, but I really liked the grain on this body.

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1967 Epiphone Madrid EC-30
1975 Fender Stratocaster
1981 Rickenbacker 360
2002 BC Rich Bich
2007 Fender Standard Stratocaster
2012 Taylor GA3-12
2012 Squier Telecaster
2017 Les Paul Kit


"Make every song you sing your favorite tune."

Yeah I feel your pain, the only place that used to stock the 'decent' models were a bunch of Catch You Next Tuesdays... nastiest people under the sun! Spent a long time mulling over Mexican models to buy...

Did you hear how they sounded? I got some EMGs over summer and really wanted to like them, they were just... yuck. Blaring, no delicacy at all, overly clinical, and you just couldn't be expressive with them. I tried though, I really did.

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'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

My 1st Strat:
A 1980 Walnut "The Strat".
I really didn't like it's sound or it's paper thin neck.
I wound up trading it for a 1976 Stratocaster at Maggio Music in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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I refuse to have a battle of the wits with an unarmed man!

My first Strat was (and still is) an American Standard 1995, red, mapple neck.

Here it is in action (old picture).

No its quit a story i was 16 and Jimi was big but so was Eddie, he had just hit the scene.
So needless to say at 16 we all needed to put humbuckers in strats. I also put schallers on it. Sad thing was it was a black 70s and someone had changed the pickguard to black and left the pickups and knobs white like Gilmours.
Then Randy Rhoads hit the scene so we all needed Vs. I got a mighty mite v body so it was parted out of existence lol. Sad.

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https://www.facebook.com/groups/fenderguitarandamp/

My first Stratocaster was/is a fiesta red US Vintage '62 (which were the precursors to the MIA '62 Re-issue Stratocasters).

It was made in 1992, but I bought it new in the summer of 1993. I still own it (with all the case candy!).

The US Vintage guitars were fairly accurate to a true 1962 (or 1957, if you went for the maple fretboard and fewer screws on the pickguard), but there were a few errors made, the color of the pickguard being one of the most obvious.
Outside of putting a 5-way pickup selector switch, I kept it dead-stock for several years. But I eventually (in no particular order):
-Put on an aged white mother of pearl pickguard
-Put on aged white pickup covers, selector switch tip and tremolo cavity plate
-Attached a plate/badge from a 1967 Pontiac that says "CUSTOM" to the "ashtray" bridge cover
-Lightly rubbed a Scotch-Brite pad on the back of the neck in order to make it a bit more "satin-y"
-Blocked the tremolo with a small stack of quarters
-Put a push/pull pot on the center (tone) knob to turn on the bridge pup no matter where the selector switch is set.
-Replaced the stock pups with Pete Biltoft Vintage Vibe SP-90 pups
-Replaced the neck plate with one engraved with my band's logo (see my signature line) and the guitar's name "Fiesta Red"
-Had a friend scan my signature and make a vinyl decal that is applied to the back of the headstock (a la Jimmie Vaughan's signature Strat)
-Moved the wires around so the bridge pup has a tone control (middle tone knob controls Neck & Middle, last tone knob controls Bridge)

I kept all the original parts with the case candy so I can return it to it's original form, if need be.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I got my first Strat three weeks ago. It's a Candy Apple Red American Special:

Got my left handed Stratocaster USA 2 weeks ago, Chrome Red.

before



After

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Left Handed USA Stratocaster.

Mustang 3 Amp Version 2

Left Handed Custom77 - Les Paul.