The Last of the Staggered-Pole Pickup Strats in a Rare Custom Color

This 1974 See-Through Dark Walnut Stratocaster weighs 8.60 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body and one-piece medium profile fretted maple neck with 21 frets and black dot position markers. Large headstock with "Fender" logo in black with gold outline and "STRATOCASTER" in black beside it, "PAT 3,143,028" in black below it, and "Original Contour Body Patented" at the ball end of the headstock. Two "butterfly" string trees. Individual Fender "F" closed-back tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Three-bolt neck plate with large Fender backward "F" and serial number ("559128") between the top two screws. Three-ply (white/black/white) plastic pickguard with eleven screws. Three white plastic-covered Stratocaster staggered-pole pickups with outputs of 4.97k, 5.64k, and 5.72k. Three controls (two volume, one tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. Cream plastic ribbed-sided knobs with gold lettering. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge/tailpiece. The neck is stamped "0903" on the end, which indicates that the neck is for a fretted maple neck Stratocaster, finished with a custom color. The gray-bottom pickups are sequentially stamped in black: "17 42 74," "17 43 74," and "17 44 74," and the potentiometers are all stamped: "137 7451" (CTS December 1974). This super guitar, in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition, is one of the last of the staggered-pole pickup Strats, and is an excellent example of an early seventies custom color Stratocaster with that very distinctive "Jimi Hendrix" sound. Housed in the original Fender black hardshell case with black plush lining (8.50).

"The Stratocaster was launched during 1954 [and was priced at $249.50, or $229.50 without vibrato]. Samples around May and June were followed by the first proper production run in October. 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 [and in some ways seemed to owe more to the contemporary automobile design than traditional guitar forms], 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).