The Lightest Ash "Fifties" Strat We Have Ever Seen!

This "dream" guitar weighs just 6.90 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid ash body, contoured on back and lower bass bout, and finished in two-tone Sunburst (yellow to black), one-piece fretted maple neck with 21 frets and black dot position markers. Small headstock with decal with Fender "spaghetti" logo in gold with black trim, "STRATOCASTER" in black beside it, "WITH SYNCHRONIZED TREMOLO" in black below it, and "ORIGINAL Contour Body" at the ball end of the headstock. Individual single-line "no-name" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (stamped inside: "2356766 PAT APPLD"). Single circular string tree. Three white Bakelite-covered black-bottom single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and balanced outputs of 5.82k, 5.62k, and 5.80k. Single-layer white Bakelite pickguard with eight screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. White Bakelite knobs with gold lettering. Six-pivot bridge/vibrato unit with through-body stringing. The neck has a pencil mark of "12-55 XA," the neck pickup cavity has a pencil mark of "11-55," and the middle pickup cavity has a pencil mark of "M C." The potentiometers are all stamped "304 543" (Stackpole October 1955). This guitar is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition, with some finish checking, some belt buckle wear and a small area of wear through to the wood on the back of the guitar, a few very small marks on the top of the guitar, the most noticeable one being a small (1 inch) surface scratch on the lower bass bout, and a few small surface chips on the edges of the guitar. There is some playing wear to the maple fretboard, and a certain amount of wear on the back of the neck, especially between the 7th and 15th frets. There is also a small amount of wear to the treble edges of the Bakelite covers of the neck and middle pickups (which is usual). We were unhappy with the reading on the middle pickup -- so we sent it to the leading expert on Stratocaster pickups, Lindy Fralin, who has now restored it to its full former glory. This guitar has the original frets, which show very little wear, because the guitar spent most of its life with flat wound strings. It is totally original and is most certainly the lightest "Fifties" Strat that we have ever heard of…let alone owned! It has the one-piece ash body but weighs like an alder. Complete with original bridge cover and tremolo arm. Housed in its original Fender "Tweed" case with brown leather ends and red plush lining (9.00).

"The Stratocaster was launched during 1954 [and was priced at $249.50, or $229.50 without vibrato]...The new Fender guitar was the first solidbody electric with three pickups [Gibson's electric-acoustic ES-5, introduced five years earlier, had been the overall first], meaning a range of fresh tones, and featured a new-design vibrato unit that provided pitch-bending and shimmering chordal effects. The new vibrato -- erroneously called a 'tremolo' by Fender and many others since -- was troublesome in development. But the result was the first self-contained vibrato unit: an adjustable bridge, a tailpiece, and a vibrato system, all in one. It wasn't a simple mechanism for the time, but a reasonably effective one...Fender's new vibrato had six bridge-pieces, one for each string, adjustable for height and length, which meant that the feel of the strings could be personalized and the guitar made more in tune with itself...The Strat came with a radically sleek, solid body, based on the outline of the 1951 Fender Precision Bass. Some musicians had complained to Fender that the sharp edge of the Telecaster's body was uncomfortable...so the Strat's body was contoured for the player's comfort. Also, it was finished in a yellow-to-black sunburst finish. Even the jack socket mounting was new, recessed in a stylish plate on the body face...the Fender Stratocaster looked like no other guitar around especially the flowing, sensual curves of that beautifully proportioned, timeless body. The Stratocaster's new-style pickguard complemented the lines perfectly, and the overall impression was of a guitar where all the components ideally suited one another. The Fender Stratocaster has since become the most popular, the most copied, the most desired, and very probably the most played solid electric guitar ever" (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 18).