"Stevie Ray Vaughan…"

This forty-six year old 'three-tone' sunburst Strat weighs just 7.80 lbs. and has a nice, fat 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, one-piece medium-profile maple neck with a wonderful 'veneer' Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 21 frets and clay dot position markers. Small headstock with "Fender" 'Spaghetti' logo decal in gold with black trim, "Stratocaster" in black beside it, and "With Synchronized Tremolo" and three patent numbers in black below. Single "butterfly" string tree with metal spacer. Individual "single-line" Kluson Deluxe 'single-line' tuners with oval metal buttons (stamped on the inside "D-169400 / PATENT NO."). The neck is stamped in black "2 DEC 63B." Four-bolt neck plate with the serial number ("L21051") between the top two screws. Three black-bottom white plastic-covered single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and outputs of 5.62k, 5.52k, and 5.43k. The pole-pieces are staggered as follows: (highest to lowest) D+G; low E+A; high E; and finally B. Three-layer celluloid "green" (white/black/white) pickguard with eleven screws and aluminum shield. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. The potentiometers are all stamped "137 6346" (CTS November 1963). White ABS plastic knobs with green lettering. Jack socket in body face. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece. Complete with the original tremolo arm, bridge cover and strap. There are a few small areas of surface loss on the body edges and a few small marks on the back, but otherwise this great pre CBS Strat is in excellent plus (9.00) condition. The only tiny ‘flaw’ is a small crack in the pickguard between the bass side of the neck pickup and the edge of the pickguard (this is the weakest point of the pickguard and is a very common issue). Housed in it's original Fender cream tolex hardshell case with black leather ends and dark orange plush lining (9.00).

"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).