John English's Personal Guitar...

This 12 1/4 inch wide and 1 1/2 thick 'custom-color' guitar weighs 7.40 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a 'full' scale length of 24 inches. Solid alder asymmetrical double-cutaway body with 'offset waist' (like a Mustang). One-piece maple neck with Indian rosewood "slab-board" fretboard with 21 frets and pearloid dot position markers. Individual 'two-line' Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic oval buttons with "D-169400 / PATENT NO." inside. Headstock with "Fender" in gold with black trim and beneath that ""Duo-Sonic II" / Pat.2,573,254  3,143,028". Four-bolt 'F' style neckplate with serial number "107031" stamped between the top two screws. Single 'butterfly' string tree. Two plain-top Bakelite covered pickups with gray bottoms and balanced outputs of 5.37k and 5.68k (dated on underside in pencil "1-4-66".The neck is stamped in black "8 NOV 65B". Three layer mother of pearl over black/white plastic pickguard with twelve screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus two three-way pickup selector switches. Black plastic 'Jaguar' style control knobs. One of the potentiometers is stamped "304 6542" (Stackpole, October 1965), the other has been changed for a later one - most certainly by John English. Combined bridge/tailpiece with three adjustable 'threaded' saddles. This guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition with a few surface chips and marks - mainly on the edges of the body. The frets have been replaced with the correct gauge fret-wire - again most certainly by John English. Housed in its original Fender gray hardshell case with black leather ends and red plush lining (9.00).

This guitar was owned and played by the late John English  who was the Senior Master Builder at The Fender Custom Shop having joined Fender in 1970. This guitar came to us directly from his estate together with a letter of authenticity.

Senior Master Builder John English who passed away June 2007 at the early age of 57 was raised on ‘50s and ‘60s rock ’n’ roll. He joined Fender in 1970, working alongside company pioneers such as Freddie Tavares and Bill Carson, and was a driving force in the early days of the Fender Custom Shop, helping to define the creative environment that continues in the shop to this day. One of the original Custom Shop builders, he was internationally renowned for his custom, concept and art guitars. He was a guitarist, drummer and artist who worked in the United States and Europe, and was a true original whose creations used exotic woods, metals, plastics, stones and bone, and were inspired by music, art, architecture and nature. He built custom guitars for countless musicians and collectors, ranging from Eric Clapton to President George W. Bush. His collaboration with surf guitar king Dick Dale resulted in one of the first Fender Custom Shop signature model guitars; he created Fender’s first Japanese signature guitar with Michiya Haruhata, and his trio of concept guitars created with art phenomenon Shag caused quite a sensation at the 2003 NAMM show.

In late 1964 both models moved to second generation, coinciding with the introduction of the Mustang. The "II" designation was then added to the DuoSonic and MusicMaster names. These models are more like the Mustang (except the Mustang has a vibrato), than the original DuoSonic/MusicMaster models. The differences in the new generation were in the body shape, pickguard, and electronics. It was available with either a 22.5" or 24" scale, but is most often found with the longer scale. The 24" scale Duo-Sonic II, Musicmaster II, and Mustang of the September 1965 to October 1966 period are sometimes found with a slab rosewood fingerboard, usually of Indian rosewood. Some Fender experts speculate that the slab board necks were leftovers from 1962 Jaguars. This is not correct as the dot spacing, peghead shape, and type of rosewood on a 1962 jaguar neck is different than these 9/65 to 10/66 necks. Mostly likely, since Fender was backordered on these guitars, slab boards were used because the manufacturing process was quicker for this style of fingerboard (a veneer fingerboard requires another manufacturing step).