A Totally Original 1957 Hardtail Stratocaster…

This totally original 1957 Hardtail Stratocaster is the lightest Stratocaster that we have ever seen -- it weighs just 6.70 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout, and finished in two-tone Sunburst (yellow to black), and that perfect '57 one-piece maple neck with a "strong V" backshape, 21 frets and black dot inlays. Small headstock decal logo. Individual Kluson Deluxe tuners with metal buttons. Single "butterfly" string tree. Neckplate with four screws and serial number ("024701") between the top two screws. Three white plastic-covered staggered-height pole pickups with balanced outputs of 5.61k, 5.37k, and 5.69k. Single-layer white Bakelite pickguard with eight screws. Three white plastic knobs (one volume and two tone) plus three-way selector switch. Six-pivot bridge unit with through-body stringing. The end of the neck has a pencil mark of "12-57" and the underside of the neck joint has a pencil mark "C", as does the neck cavity. The middle pickup cavity has a date of "1-58," and the pots are dated "304 7 23" (Stackpole, 1957, 23rd week). This excellent and totally original guitar has a small amount of belt buckle wear on the back, some moderate lacquer checking, and a few small marks on the sides. The fretboard and neck show some playing wear, and the guitar has been expertly refretted with medium guage fretwire. There is a small "additional" screw hole on the bass side of the pickguard where the previous owner had at one time fitted an "extra" screw (silly person!) It is still a great example and a wonderful player, and has that great "fifties" Stratocaster tone. Housed in an early sixties (ca. 1961-1962) Fender light brown tolex hardshell case with brown leather ends (8.00).

"The Stratocaster was launched during 1954 [and was priced at $249.50, or $229.50 without vibrato]. Samples around May and June were followed by the first proper production run in October. 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 [and in some ways seemed to owe more to the contemporary automobile design than traditional guitar forms], 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).