"Under the Bed for 53 Years"

This 12-inch three-quarter-size "student" guitar weighs just 6.60 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 9/16 inches and a scale length of 22 1/2 inches. Solid alder 'slab' body. One-piece maple neck with 21 original medium-thin frets, black dot position markers and a very comfortable medium profile. Individual Kluson Deluxe 'single-line' tuners with white plastic oval buttons (stamped on the underside "D-169400 / Patent No."). Headstock with Fender 'Spaghetti' logo in gold with black trim and "Duo-Sonic" in black beneath. Single butterfly string-tree. Two plain-top single-coil pickups with 'black' bottoms and balanced outputs of 5.59k and 5.77k. Gold anodized aluminum pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way selector switch and jack socket, all on the pickguard. Chrome knobs with knurled sides and flat tops. Combined micro-adjustable bridge/tailpiece with three threaded saddles. The potentiometers are both stamped "137825" (CTS, June 1958) and the neck is dated "8/58." This guitar is complete with its original bridge cover and is in near mint (9.25++) condition with virtually no fretboard wear and just a small amount of playing wear on the first few frets. Housed in its original Fender dark red vinyl-covered hardshell case with red felt lining (9.00). With the original strap, the original hang-tag with matching serial number and date "Sept. 18, 1958" and even the original price tag showing that this guitar cost $139.50 in 1958. Also included is the original two-page descriptive printed leaflet for the Duo-Sonic. This is the finest example of an early Duo-Sonic that we have ever seen.

On the Duo-Sonic, the two pickups are wired in series and with the pickup selector switch in the middle position this configuration gives an almost humbucking pickup sound.

"Fender's new 'student' guitars, the Duo-Sonic and Musicmaster, first appeared in 1956. They had smaller, lighter bodies, shorter necks and basic appointments... Despite their budget status, the student models were still playable instruments: Fender seemed to have cut the right corners" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 29). Although Fender used the term "three-quarter size" in publicizing the new student models, only the neck and the resulting scale-length were smaller, designed for younger hands that were just starting to play guitar.

"These two new instruments -- the Duo-Sonic and the Musicmaster -- had a shorter 22 1/2" (571mm) scale-length as opposed to Fender's customary 25" (635mm) scale. The 'three-quarter size' one-pickup Musicmaster and two-pickup Duo-Sonic were described in the company's ads and catalogs as being 'ideal for students and adults with small hands.' They were clearly designed for players on a tight budget, for those starting out on electric guitars who flocked to the retailers' schools... One apparently attractive feature of the Duo-Sonic and Musicmaster... was what Fender called 'gold-finished pickguards.' These 'guards were in fact made from a gold-colored anodized aluminum. The metal provided excellent electrical shielding, meaning less extraneous noise. However, the electrolytic anodized 'skin' soon wore through to the aluminum below as the player strummed and picked, leaving unsightly gray patches. The anodized 'guards did not last much beyond the 1950s" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 22).