A Late 1956 HardTail Stratocaster - Refinished in Black With All Original Electrics and Hardware.

1956 Fender Stratocaster (Hardtail).

This late 1956 'HardTail' Stratocaster weighs just 7.00 lbs. One-piece solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout. One-piece fretted maple neck with a typical '56 soft "V" profile and a really wide nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches. 21 medium frets and black dot position markers and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. The body of the guitar has been re-finished in black quite some time ago. 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 'no-name' Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (stamped inside: "2356766 / PATENT APPLD"). Single butterfly string tree. Four-bolt neck plate with the serial number "14507" between the bottom two screws. Three white plastic-covered black-bottom single-coil pickups with staggered pole pieces and nice balanced outputs of 5.54k, 5.67k, and 5.69k. Single-layer white plastic pick guard with eight screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pick guard. White plastic knobs with gold lettering. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece (six-pivot bridge/vibrato unit with through-body stringing). The neck has a pencil mark of "XX-56" (the month has been rubbed away).  The potentiometers are stamped "304 633" (Stackpole August 1956). All of the electrics and the hardware are original to the guitar. The neck, which is most probably from a 'Tremolo' guitar has been expertly re-fretted and the fretboard has been re-lacquered. The frets show a little wear but have plenty of 'meat' left. The body refin was most certainly done quite a long time ago - the finish looks old and a little worn - the guitar plays and sounds like a dream. We did consider having Scott Lentz do one of his amazing re-fins but after examining the guitar Scott & I both agreed that this old refin had so much 'mojo' that it would be prudent to leave the decision to the next owner. Housed in a Guardian three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with black plush lining (9.50). A really great opportunity to get a real (albeit a probable marriage) 1956 'V' neck Stratocaster with all that amazing playability and sound - for a fraction of what an all original example would cost.

"The Stratocaster was launched during 1954 [and was priced at $249.50, or $229.50 without vibrato]...The new Fender guitar was the first solid body 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 Strat's new-style pick guard complemented the lines perfectly, and the overall impression was of a guitar where all the components ideally suited one another. The 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).