One of the Cleanest and 100% Original Early Slab-Board Stratocasters

1959 Fender Stratocaster

This lightweight late 1959 'Slab-Board' Stratocaster weighs just 7.50 lbs. and has a two-tone sunburst, solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout. One-piece maple neck with a 'slab' Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 21 original medium-thin frets and clay dot position markers, a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. A wonderful and typical '59 neck profile rising gently from the first fret (0.83 inches) to the fifth fret (0.86) to the ninth fret (0.96) to the twelfth fret (1.00) and finally to the 15th fret (1.03 inches). Small headstock with decal with "Fender" 'Spaghetti' logo in gold with black trim, "Stratocaster" in black beside it, "With Synchronized Tremolo" below and "Original Contour Body" at the ball end of the headstock. Single "butterfly" string tree with 1/8 inch metal spacer. Individual "single-line" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons, each stamped on the underside "D-169400/Patent No." The end of the neck has no pencil date marking as is usual for a '59 and the body is dated "11/59" in pencil inside the tremolo string cavity. Four-bolt neck plate with serial number "43169" between the top two screws. Three white plastic covered black-bottom single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and outputs of 6.05k, 6.29k, and 5.79k. Three-layer "minty" white over black plastic pickguard with eleven screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. The pots are dated "304 5948" (Stackpole November 1959). White plastic knobs with green lettering. Jack socket in body face. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece. We give this guitar a strong 9:00 condition rating - a very detailed condition report is below. Housed in the original Fender three-latch rectangular tan hardshell case with brown leather ends and light orange plush lining (9.00). Complete with the original 'Ash-Tray bridge cover; Original tremolo arm; Original Fender black leather strap; Original 12-page Fender Stratocaster 'green' hang-tag; and a plastic envelope with six old Fender picks.

This is a 100% original and untouched guitar - certainly one of the cleanest late '59 Strats that we have ever seen - now let me be super critical regarding the condition:

There is the bare minimum of belt buckle rash on the back of the body (nothing through the finish); The plastic tremolo cavity cover has small cracks by each of the twelve screws but is 100% complete.
There are about six very small marks/indentations on the back of the body.
There are some small dings/dents on the sides of the body which have been expertly touched up.
There is one small area (1/2 x 1/2 inch) on the lower-side of the treble horn which again has been expertly touched up.
There is an area of 'pick wear' on the top edge of the treble horn and a few very small and insignificant dings/dents on the face, the most significant being a small 3/16 inch circular mark just by the edge of the bass bout.
The original frets show some signs of playing wear but this is mostly confined to the first five frets and there are no significant 'divots' in the rosewood fretboard.
There is some light finish loss to the back of the neck - this is mainly confined to behind the first six frets.
The headstock has some loss to the decal (quite usual for a 58/59 Strat) this has affected the "er" at the end of 'Fender' and has just touched the 'ro' and the 'd' of 'synchronized'.

Now after stating all the minutia let me say that this is one of the best playing and sounding Strats that we have seen -  the neck is just soooo perfect and the weight at just 7.50 pounds is eaxcly what everyone wants from a Strat…

This fine and totally original November 1959 Stratocaster has no neck date, as usual, and "11/59" in the vibrato springs cavity. "With the notable exception of a few months after Spring 1959 and the 1973-1981 period, Stratocaster necks were quite consistently dated at the heel from 1954 onwards. This date is revealed when the neck is removed or at least loosened from the body, so that its bottom end can be examined. Various dating marks have actually been used at the factory over the past decades... After April 1959, the dating procedure was temporarily suspended for several months and then resumed in early 1960. Rumour has it that Fender stopped marking any date because someone complained about an obscene message penciled on the neck of his new guitar! This explains why the latest Maple Neck Stratocasters from the 1950's and the earliest models with a 'slab' rosewood fretboard do not feature a neck date, although they usually carry a body date!" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Stratocaster, p. 66).

"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).