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Post subject: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:36 am
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Last night on Live Lessons with Steve Krenz they did a remote broadcast from Gruhn Guitars in Nashville. Mr. Gruhn had with him the very first Strat ever produced, serial number 0100. (apparently they started with #100.)

Steve played it for a very short piece and, of course, it sounded really sweet.

You can see a rebroadcast of it here: http://www.ustream.tv/gibson-learn-and- ... ve-lessons

Here is the guitar in inventory: http://www.gruhn.com/features/EF8510/EF8510.htm

If, after viewing it you absolutely have to have it, you can do so for a mere $250,000.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 8:34 am
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Interesting. Legend has always had it that Dave Gilmour was the owner of the #1. Haven't had the time to listen to the entire interview but find it incredible that this piece, in pristine condition,
has been tucked away for 60 years now. This guitar could only have been acquired by someone inside the company. Wonder who??

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:24 am
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Gilmour owns an early Strat with the serial number 0001, but it's not the first Strat ever made (then as now, production serials are not consecutive). http://www.gilmourish.com/?page_id=259

From the Gruhn site linked in the opening post "This 1954 Fender Stratocaster is the earliest known example of this model."

That's not a definitive statement that it's the very first Strat to roll off the production line. There could very well be one or more out there that have earlier body dates (with lower or higher serial numbers).

And there were several final-spec prototypes without serials, so "first Strat ever" is very arguable even if that's actually the first one with a serial.

But it is a spectacularly clean, very early piece.


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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:36 am
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Very interesting.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:04 am
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The very first of them had the serial # stamped on the plastic trem cover, like this one...and like the 2004 CS 50th Anniversaries are...but in June 1954, Fender switched to stamping the number on the neck plate, and there doesn't seem to be a continuity of numbering between the two versions.
I have a friend who owns #0022, stamped on the neckplate, and I was with him in London's Hard Rock Cafe guitar vault where we saw Duane Allman's '54 which has #0019 on the neckplate.


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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:05 am
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If you watch the interview it Mr. Gruhn is fairly firm in it being the first production one.

It was purchased by someone who, in turn, sold it to Richard Smith who wrote "Fender - The Sound Heard around the World":
http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Sound-Hear ... hitecom-20

I'm not sure when Mr. Smith sold it to Gruhn Guitars but I got the impression during the broadcast that it was fairly recently.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:38 am
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strayedstrater wrote:
There could very well be one or more out there that have earlier body dates (with lower or higher serial numbers).

And there were several final-spec prototypes without serials, so "first Strat ever" is very arguable even if that's actually the first one with a serial.



True, it is all speculative. I am unsure whether any of the original Fender employees are even with us anymore who would truly know what the serial of the first ever strat was.

It sure doesn't hurt to add a nice chunk to the price for the story. :P


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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:28 am
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The Richard Smith '54 was used by Chris Fleming as the model for the 2004 CS 50th Anniversary Strats.


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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:52 am
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There was a gentleman who went by the name of 53strat who arrived here on the Forum about five years ago claiming to have a 1953 design prototype version of the Stratocaster, which would make it the oldest known surviving example. Forum user Orvilleowner refers to it in the third post down on this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=33199

However, 53strat's thread itself seems to have vanished - which is frustrating! But there's a webpage about the guitar in question:

https://sites.google.com/site/1953stratocaster/

An interesting read.

Cheers - C

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:58 am
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matonanjin wrote:
If you watch the interview it Mr. Gruhn is fairly firm in it being the first production one.It was purchased by someone who, in turn, sold it to Richard Smith who wrote "Fender - The Sound Heard around the World":

It seems to be logical that this guitar would have to have been conserved and never gone out the door to a dealer. The lineage from that holder to Richard Smith would be most interesting. In 1954 one of the three principals would likely have kept it..Leo, Freddy, George, or someone in their families.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:42 pm
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ZZDoc wrote:
It seems to be logical that this guitar would have to have been conserved and never gone out the door to a dealer. The lineage from that holder to Richard Smith would be most interesting. In 1954 one of the three principals would likely have kept it..Leo, Freddy, George, or someone in their families.


You think that the original owner was a Fender insider? It seems Richard Smith would have to be asked from whom he got it. It isn't beyond belief that it was purchased by someone in the usual way (through a music store) and was kept in good shape (not taken on the road, etc).

Were those first 100 or so Strats with the serial number on the trem cover built in order? That is the question. Everything about the way Fender installed the serial numbered neck plates suggests not.

There's a lot we may never know.

Re: the 1953 Strat: it seems to be the only documented Stratocaster prototype. The story of that guitar makes me think that the Fender insiders didn't have much foresight for conservation of their early models. They gave that prototype to 53strat's father in 1954.

Added: Oh, I thought of another prototype. George Fullerton had a Strat that had a different type of pickguard/control configuration (involving a metal plate, different routing, different control positions). The Custom Shop recently made some reissues of it, see the 2011 tab at http://www.fender.com/custom-shop/retired-models/

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Last edited by orvilleowner on Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:57 pm
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orvilleowner wrote:
You think that the original owner was a Fender insider? It seems Richard Smith would have to be asked from whom he got it. It isn't beyond belief that it was purchased by someone in the usual way (through a music store) and was kept in good shape (not taken on the road, etc).

Your take on this certainly isn't unrealistic. I wonder that, this guitar being as big a find as it is, the entire lineage is not revealed. Would be interesting to learn that it was somebody's grandfather's guitar, purchased at a garage sale from some unknowing seller.
I would prefer to believe that it was treasured otherwise, by someone in the company as a landmark piece.

BTW: I know someone who is still using his father's '54 Strat professionally. The guitar looks like death warmed over compared to the one in Gruhn's collection presently. Talk about a relic finish. This one was earned. I've had that guitar in my hands. Sometime within the next several weeks I'll try to find out what the serial number on his guitar is.

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:54 pm
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I think George Gruhn states in the interview that the guitar was given to a dealership in El Monte, CA, before marketing and normal distribution lines were set up.

So according to that version, it would seem that there was, understandably, a desire to start showing the NEW Fender model and get some interest going.

I'm sure no one was thinking of the eventual history of the guitar line, but rather of getting something sold!

Two excerpts from Tony Bacon's History of the Strat: Tom Zito wrote in the Washington Post in 1972 that the earliest Strats, available for $150 in 1952, (sic) had increased in value 500 percent. (increased to $750!! - danagos)

...and John Page ((later to run the Custom Shop) in the late 70's, found a CBS executive "cheerfully" giving away prototypes and original samples (Fender's Strat history) to dealers for goodwill!

Who knew? 8)

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 6:05 pm
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Just gave the entire interview a listen, the guitar (according to George Gruhn) was given by a Fender sales rep to an El Monte, CA music dealer who sold it to an un-named person who eventually sold it to Richard Smith, musician, historian and author of "Fender, the Sound Heard Around the World" about Leo Fender (his friend) and his guitars. Smith owned it for 30 years.

According to Gruhn it is the earliest completely original example of a production Strat with no modifications, a neck date of Jan. and body date of April 1954. He thought the Gilmour owned Strat was dated Aug. 54.

It did sound pretty good and it's an extraordinary bit of the history of the guitars I love.

Thanks matonanjin :)

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Post subject: Re: Very first Strat ever!! Serial #0100
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:06 pm
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By rough math...each previous owner held the guitar for 30 years. Not bad!

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