Under The Bed for Forty-Eight Years

1969 Fender Stratocaster in Sonic Blue.

This almost like new Super rare 'Sonic Blue' Stratocaster weighs 8.10 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, one-piece maple neck, and veneer rosewood fretboard with 21 original thin frets and pearloid dot position markers. Single "butterfly" string tree with large nylon spacer. Large headstock with decal logo with "Fender" in black with gold outline, "STRATOCASTER" in black beside it, "WITH SYNCHRONIZED TREMOLO" in black below it, and two patent numbers "2,741,146" and "3,143,028" below that. Fender "F" closed-back tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Four-bolt neck plate with serial number "259557" between the top two screws. Three single-coil light grey bottom pickups with staggered polepieces and nicely matched outputs of 5.69k, 5.80k, and 5.61k, respectively. The underside of the pickups are stamped in black "7389 18"?. Three-layer plastic pickguard (white over black) with mother-of-pearl on underside and eleven screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. White plastic Stratocaster knobs with greenish gold lettering. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece. The neck is stamped "22 JUL 69 B"; the potentiometers are all stamped "137 6932" (CTS August 1969). The first two frets show a small amount of wear, the next five a negligible amount. There are no 'divots' in the fretboard. The Sonic Blue finish is fresh and bright and shows a very slight fade when the pickguard is removed. This guitar has spent most of its forty-eight years in its case and consequently there is a very slight (almost imperceptible) red 'stain' from the dark orange plush case lining. lining. There is some very light finish checking on the back and just two edge marks, one on the lower bout and the other on the treble horn. With all of the aforementioned, this impossibly rare custom color Stratocaster is in near mint (9.25) condition. Most certainly the finest example that we have ever seen! Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover. Housed in its original Fender black hardshell case with black leather ends and dark orange plush lining. (9.25).

Sonic Blue is one of the rarest of the Fender custom colors. Many of Fenders colors were from the automotive industry and Sonic Blue was used on Cadillac automobiles for the year 1956 and then on Fender guitars from 1960 thru 1972.

"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).