"The Rarest Of The Rare"

Built by Master Luthier Fred Stuart in July 2001, this incredibly rare, custom-color, 13 3/4-inch-wide Marauder weighs 9.90 lbs. and has a "B" nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25.50 inches. Solid alder body, one-piece maple neck with a nice thick profile and a curved veneer rosewood fretboard with 21 original medium frets and inlaid pearloid block position markers. Headstock with matching "Candy Apple Red" finish and decal with "Fender" transitional logo in gold with black trim. Single "butterfly" string tree. The neck is stamped "22 JUN 01B." Four-bolt neck plate with number "009" between the lower two screws. Individual Fender 'F' tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Four 'humbucking' style pickups hidden beneath the pickguard with outputs of 4.77k, 4.79k, 4.77k and 4.74k respectively (from neck to bridge). Three-layer pearloid over black and white plastic pickguard with sixteen screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) and jack socket on lower metal plate adjoining pickguard on the treble side, circuit selector (rhythm/lead) slide switch and two roller controls (one volume, one tone) on upper metal plate adjoining pickguard on the bass side. Four pickup selector slide switches on metal plate inset into the pickguard on the treble side. These four, three-way pickup switches (one per pickup), allow on/off/phased settings. It has two sets of volume/tone pots - rollers on top control plate (rhythm position) and traditional pots on the lower control plate (lead position). White plastic ribbed-side conical-shape "Witch Hat" control knobs. Fender Stratocaster style "Synchronized Tremolo" combined six-saddle bridge/tailpiece. Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover. This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition with just some very fine checking and a minor ding on the top (just by the top bass edge) and a few very minor and insignificant indentations on the back of the body. A fabulous example. Together with the original Fender Custom Shop Certificate of Authenticity dated July 2001 "Marauder / serial # 0805" - signed by Fred Stuart. Also an original color photograph from 1965, showing two Fender Marauder Type 1's and three Fender Jaguars. Housed in the original Fender tan tolex hardshell case with brown leather ends and orange plush lining (9.50)

The Fender Marauder guitar 'crept' into the electric guitar scene in 1965. This instrument was an unsuccessful attempt to make an electric solid body guitar with the pickups discreetly hidden underneath the pickguard. A certain Quilla H. Freeman had this idea to put four Jazzmaster (or Jaguar) pickups into a discreet place under the pickguard's surface. Bad luck! Few months later, there were lots of weak signals and buzzes from the pickups and this led to a dispute between Freeman and CBS about this ubiquitous patent, according to Forrest White, then electric guitar and amp production manager at CBS-owned Fender during that period. Apparently Fender made just one of each of the sunburst and the custom colors each fitted with four new style humbucking pickups (hidden beneath the pickguard). So only a handful of Marauders were produced. Each of Fender's divisional reps was given a Marauder 1 to show to prospective dealer clients and hopefully take orders. Unfortunately none of the reps managed to get a single order and it was decided that the 'humbucking' pickups were too expensive for mass-production or the technology itself was too expensive to licence. So in 1966 the boffins at Fender attempted a second prototype, this time with three visible Jaguar pickups… Once again they made one of each color and off went the divisional sales reps in search of potential customers. 'Deja-Vu' - they were again unsuccessful, with not one single order being placed. The Marauder project sank soon afterwards, as neither model actually went into general production.

"After introducing the Jazzmaster in 1959 and the Jaguar in 1962, between 1965 and 1966, Fender prototyped the Marauder. There were two versions made: Type I, with four humbucking pickups hidden underneath the pickguard and Type II, with the pickups mounted in a more conventional fashion on the pickguard. The Type II variation has three pickups, with the bridge pickup slanted as upon a Stratocaster. It also has seven switches and four knobs. The thinking behind the model was to combine the ideas behind the Stratocaster and Jaguar guitars while adding some new features to increase versatility. The guitar never officially passed the prototype stage, allegedly because the hidden pickups of the Type I variation were either too expensive for mass-production or the technology itself was too expensive to license. It's perhaps the rarest Fender guitar ever made and it is said that only 8 Marauders were created (with 4 of these guitars sporting slanted frets on the fingerboard). Fender canceled the Marauder in 1966." (Wikipedia).