A Totally Original 1957 Hardtail Strat!

This guitar is the one of the lightest Stratocasters that we have ever seen -- it weighs just 7.00 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches -- and it has that perfect '57 one-piece maple neck with a "strong V" back shape. Solid alder 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 and "Stratocaster" in black beside it. "Original Contour Body" at the ball end of the headstock. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (stamped inside: "D-169400/Patent No"). Single "butterfly" string tree. Four-bolt neckplate with serial number ("-21299") between the top two screws. Three white plastic-covered staggered-height pole pickups with balanced outputs of 6.55k, 5.85k, and 5.85k. Single-layer white plastic pickguard with eight screws. Three controls (one volume and two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on treble side of pickguard. White plastic knobs with greenish gold lettering. Fender six-pivot bridge unit with through-body stringing. The neck has a pencil mark of "8-57," the middle pickup cavity also has a date of "5-57," and the pots are stamped "304 7 23" (Stackpole, June 1957). This totally original guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. There is a fair amount of belt buckle wear on the back, a small area of pick wear on the bass side of the top of the guitar just above and between the middle and bridge pickups, a small area of arm wear on the bass bout, a few small marks on the sides, and a little bit of fretboard wear, but the original frets are almost like new. There is the usual amount of tarnishing to the nickel saddles. This guitar has every sound you have ever dreamt of finding in an early '50s Strat, and in addition, it has a treble pickup that will knock your socks off! Housed in its original Fender "Tweed" hardshell case with brown leather ends and red plush lining (8.75). Complete with the original bridge cover.

"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).