An Exceptionally Fine September 1965 transition 'L Series' Lake Placid Blue Stratocaster
One of the last of the 'Small' Headstock Strats…

1965 Fender Stratocaster

This exceptionally fine transition 'L Series' custom-color, September 1965, Lake Placid Blue Metallic Stratocaster weighs just 7.70 lbs. Solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout. One-piece maple neck with a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a medium-to-thick profile. Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 21 original medium frets and pearloid dot position markers. Small headstock with decal with "Fender" ''Transition' logo (fall 1964-1965) in gold with black trim, "Stratocaster" in black beside it, and "With Synchronized Tremolo" and four patent numbers in black below "2,573,254  2,960,900  2,741,146  3.143,028". Single "butterfly" string tree with 'large' nylon spacer. Individual "double-line" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons stamped on the underside "D-169400 / Patent No". The neck is dated "2 SEP 65B." Four-bolt neck plate with the serial number "L63689" between the top two screws. Three light-gray bottom white plastic-covered single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and outputs of 5.94k, 5.96k, and 5.71k. The pickups are all dated in black marker "9.28.65". Three-layer white over black plastic pickguard with eleven screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. White plastic knobs with green lettering. Jack socket in body face. The potentiometers are all stamped "137 6510" (CTS March 1965). Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece. Complete with the original tremolo arm. The Lake Placid Blue Metallic finish is fresh and bright and totally unfaded. The original frets and fretboard show virtually no wear. This fifty-six year old, 100% original custom-color Stratocaster is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition, with just some very fine finish checking on the top and back, two small surface chips (1/2 x 1/2 inch & 1/2 x 1/8 inch) on the treble edge, a few small surface chips on the sides and back, (most less than a match-head) and a few small indentations on the back of the neck. Certainly one of the cleanest pre-CBS Lake Placid Blue Stratocasters that we have ever seen and from the condition of the frets, fretboard and beck - very rarely played. Complete with the original tremolo arm. Housed in it's original Fender, three-latch rectangular black hardshell case with black leather ends and dark orange plush lining (9.00).

"Overall, the CBS-era changes can all be described as a shift to a more mass-production style of guitar making. Things began to change in late 1964 and the period from then until the beginning of 1966 is usually considered the “transition” period. Guitars from this era can be identified by their use of a serial number beginning with an L".

Fender introduced the Lake Placid Blue finish in 1960. "Du Pont was the biggest supplier of paint to the car factories, most notably those of General Motors. Fender used paints from Du Pont's Duco nitro-cellulose lines, such as Fiesta Red or Foam Green, as well as the more color-retentive Lucite acrylics like Lake Placid Blue Metallic or Burgundy Mist Metallic. As Custom Color researcher Clay Harrell has established, these names given to the colors came from the original car makers' terms: Fiesta Red, for example, was first used by Ford in 1956 for a Thunderbird color, while Lake Placid Blue originally appeared on a 1958 Cadillac Brougham." (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 30).