A Near Mint Early Seventies Candy Apple Red Stratocaster.

1972 Fender Stratocaster.

This near mint Candy Apple Red Stratocaster weighs 7.70 lbs. Solid alder body, contoured on back and lower bass bout. One-piece maple fretted neck with a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches, a medium to thick profile and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches.  Twenty-one original medium frets and black dot position markers. Single "butterfly" string tree with nylon spacer. Large headstock with decal logo with "Fender" in black with gold trim, "Stratocaster" in black beside it, and "Pat. 3,143,028" beneath. Individual Fender "F" closed-back tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Three-bolt neck plate with large Fender "F" logo and with serial number "353750" between the top two screws. Three single-coil gray bottom pickups with staggered polepieces and balanced outputs of 5.59k, 5.47k, and 5.40k, each one stamped "1222" on the underside. Three-layer (white/black/white) plastic pickguard with eleven screws. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way pickup selector switch, all on pickguard. White plastic Stratocaster knobs with greenish gold lettering. Fender combined six-saddle bridge/tailpiece stamped with the part number "010347" at the string ball end. The end of the neck is stamped is stamped in black "22 MAY 72B," the potentiometers are stamped "137 7206" (Stackpole February 1972), and the neck cavity is stamped "T. Chalmers", "C. Cochran" and "F. Garcia". This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition with just a minute amount of finish checking. The original frets show very little wear and there is just one small surface wear mark on the freboard at the first fret. The Candy Apple Red color is rich and vibrant. Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover and also the original Fender 12 page hang-tag owner's manual, Fender polishing cloth, Fender case tag and two sets of original Fender strings. Housed in its original Fender black hardshell case with dark orange plush lining (9.00). A stunning example.

"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).