Fender's STRAT is a highly interesting part of the company's history. It was meant to reinstate Fender's reputation and to break with the shoddy workmanship of the late 70s. The Strat is a decidedly high-end instrument, combining vintage and modern touches. It features an ash body and maple neck, pre-CBS Headstock, 4 bolt neck joint, vintage six point vibrato system with an extra heavy block, a newly designed set of pickups (with the hot X-1 lead pickup) and an extremely clever switching circuit allowing for 9 different tones (on top of the five classic stratocaster sounds, these are neck and middle in series, middle and bridge in series, neck and bridge in parallel and neck and bridge in parallel, with the middle in series). All hardware (except for the tuners on early models) was heavily plated with gold. This, together with the intricate switching, made it a very expensive model to produce and Fender lost money on each one sold. This is an early model from 1979 or 1980 and comes in a gorgeous candy apple red with gold undercoat and matching headstock, as well as with the rare maple fretboard. It's only had one owner, sounds fantastic and is a true joy to play.
Condition: the finish proudly shows its age, with scratches, dings and dull patches. The hardware is tarnished and the gold plating has worn down a bit. The electronics are original and work well, playability is top notch, and the frets are still good. The pickguard and screws are not original. At some point, the previous owner removed some wood underneath the pickguard to install a humbucker.
Repairs: none
Mods: new pickguard and screws
