A Totally Original 1958 Stratocaster
With a Huge Neck Profile…

This early '58 Stratocaster weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout, and finished in three-tone Sunburst (yellow-red-black), one-piece fretted maple neck with an unusual (for a '58) medium-to-thick profile, 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 (the tiny decal with "ORIGINAL Contour Body" at the ball end of the headstock has worn off). Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (stamped inside: "D-169400/Patent No"). Single butterfly string tree with metal spacer. Three white plastic-covered black-bottom single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and nice, balanced outputs of 5.65k, 5.67k, and 5.55k. Single-layer white plastic pickguard with eight screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. 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 "3-58," the neck pickup cavity has the name "Carrie" in pencil, and the middle pickup cavity has a pencil mark of "3-58." The potentiometers are all stamped "304 723" (Stackpole June 1957). This guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition, with some fine finish checking, a large area of belt-buckle wear through to the wood on the back of the guitar, and a few small marks on the top and edges. There is some wear on the fretboard, but this is confined to the first seven frets. The original frets have been dressed and have plenty of life left in them. Otherwise, this fifty-year-old guitar is totally original and is one of the best playing "Fifties" Strats that we have ever owned and with a wonderful big neck profile far more like a '56 than the usually 'skinny' profile found on most fifty-eight's! Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover. Housed in its original Fender "Tweed" case with brown leather ends and orange plush lining (8.00).

Footnote and an interesting bit of Fender history: When we took this guitar apart we discovered that it has one of the "double-stamped" serial number plates with "025452" (visible) on the 'outside' and "-25994" (concealed) on the 'underside'. "Between late 1957 and late 1958 some neck plates were double stamped and they have a different number on each side - For example : S/N 025397 and -25700 with a "10-57" neck date; S/N 026958 and -26302 with a "3-58" neck date. The (visible) 6-digit number is stamped on the outside, while the "minus" number (concealed) is stamped on the underside of the neck plate." A.R. Duchossoir. The Fender Stratocaster, p.69.

"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).