An All Original 'Lightweight' Seventies 'Ash'-Body' HardTail Stratocaster.

1973 Fender Stratocaster (Hardtail).

This super light 'Natural' "Hardtail" Stratocaster weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Two-piece solid ash body, contoured on back and lower bass bout, one-piece maple fretted neck with 21 original medium frets and black dot position markers. Two "butterfly" string trees, one with nylon spacer. Large headstock with "Fender" in black with gold trim, "STRATOCASTER" in black beside it, and one patent number "3,143,028" beneath "Fender." Individual Fender "F" closed-back tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Three-bolt neck plate with large Fender "F" logo and with serial number "524290" between the top two screws. Three single-coil black bottom pickups with staggered polepieces and balanced outputs of 5.42k, 5.68k and 5.41k. Three-layer (white/black/white) plastic pickguard with 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 combined six-saddle 'hardtail' bridge/tailpiece. The three potentiometers are stamped "137 7337" (Stackpole September 1973). The end of the neck is stamped in black "0903 5213" (December 1973), the underside of the neck is stamped in black "J. Torres" and the neck cavity is stamped in black "S. Aguya". This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. There is some very light lacquer checking and just one little 'ding' on the top between the bridge and the jack input. Housed in its original 'Export' Fender three-latch rectangular black hardshell case with purple, green, orange and cream plush lining (8.75).

"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).