1962 Strat

Gassage

My Jan 64 (neck date) strat is L69664 and my Feb 65 tele is L94560.

Fender had really geared up production around this time as Leo was pushing to sell the business.

My 1960 is 44434- I wanted it to be 44464, perfect for a cricketer!

But plate srl no's are about as reliable as the weather.

Rabs

ICBM said:

Bridgehouse said:

Course, it might not be the original neck plate

That's actually more likely than the pot, I think! Or more likely still, it's just a 'throwback' plate.

I know the number is very low for a '64, but the thing with the plates is that they were stamped and then stored in a bin in the factory, which was refilled before it ran out, so occasionally down at the bottom there would be ones that were much older than the current production run should have been using. (According to Forrest White's book, if I remember rightly.)

The pot cannot have been made before the first week of December 1963, assuming the last digit is an 8 (I think it is, Rabs may be able to confirm). Even if it's a 3 it's still November '63 which is still too late for that serial number normally.

Of course it's also possible that the whole thing is a partscaster - people were doing that as long ago as the early 70s at least… Clapton and Dave Gilmour among others.

Its a 3......

Also I got a better close up of the other pot which is a Dimarzio (cant say I know that much about them but it seems very CST like)

http://i.imgur.com/xj0AOeF.jpg

I was also examining the paint/laqure job on it..  And its definitely old, that's proper checking on there. The owner is back  tomorrow so I may see if he knows any more about when it was painted and who did it. As I said in an earlier post, from what I was told, if it was done by Fender that actually makes it a bit rarer...

http://i.imgur.com/8mKvWFC.jpg

Rabs

ICBM said:

Bridgehouse said:

Course, it might not be the original neck plate

That's actually more likely than the pot, I think! Or more likely still, it's just a 'throwback' plate.

I know the number is very low for a '64, but the thing with the plates is that they were stamped and then stored in a bin in the factory, which was refilled before it ran out, so occasionally down at the bottom there would be ones that were much older than the current production run should have been using. (According to Forrest White's book, if I remember rightly.)

The pot cannot have been made before the first week of December 1963, assuming the last digit is an 8 (I think it is, Rabs may be able to confirm). Even if it's a 3 it's still November '63 which is still too late for that serial number normally.

Of course it's also possible that the whole thing is a partscaster - people were doing that as long ago as the early 70s at least… Clapton and Dave Gilmour among others.

I will double check it.. I thought I had a better pic of it but that one last number is still hard to read....

Also I got a better close up of the other pot which is a Dimarzio (cant say I know that much about them but it seems very CST like)

http://i.imgur.com/xj0AOeF.jpg

I was also examining the paint/lacquer  job on it..  And its definitely old, that's proper checking on there. The owner is back  tomorrow so I may see if he knows any more about when it was painted and who did it. As I said in an earlier post, from what I was told, if it was done by Fender that actually makes it a bit rarer...

http://i.imgur.com/8mKvWFC.jpg

Gassage

@rabs Re the refin, from those pics, it may be what's known as a "Selmer' refin- which means it's semi official- Selmer, who distributed Fender offiically to Europe from France until c. 63, would habitually buy shed loads of sunbursts and then spray up any custom colour guitars and sell them as new. THey are technically refinished but also technicially not refinished, if that makes any sense at all.

Does it have a snakeskin covered Selmer case too?

Rabs

Gassage said:

@rabs Re the refin, from those pics, it may be what's known as a "Selmer' refin- which means it's semi official- Selmer, who distributed Fender offiically to Europe from France until c. 63, would habitually buy shed loads of sunbursts and then spray up any custom colour guitars and sell them as new. THey are technically refinished but also technicially not refinished, if that makes any sense at all.

Does it have a snakeskin covered Selmer case too?

Interesting.. Cheers for that...  I have heard talk of Selmer...  But don't know much about it.. I will have a look in to that.

And that last number on the pot I got a better pic today.

http://i.imgur.com/C2S4ZNK.jpg

ICBM

Ha! After all that it's actually a 6... so mid-November '63. At that the guitar may also be a '63.

It's both very difficult to be completely sure, and actually of no real importance even though a lot of buyers seem to get very obsessive about finding an 'exact' date - it's a clay dot, round-lam board pre-CBS Strat so it was definitely made between mid '62 and late '64, and none of the parts appear inconsistent with that even if they aren't all exactly the same date... which is true of many that are definitely factory original.

nickb_boy

Always interested in seeing old gear like this that demonstrates the quirks about factory production back in the day when it comes to parts assembly and paint work.  The fact that the mindset back then wasn't thinking of these instruments being future vintage collectors pieces that would have a cork sniffer following and just screwed together what was to hand in the parts buckets in front of them.


This one does remind me a lot of the recent GoFundMe 62 strat that started a fair about of debate:
https://www.gofundme.com/1962-fender-stratocaster

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/107329/go-fund-me-anyone-want-to-buy-this-lad-a-1962-strat/p1