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It's a '62 Strat body which when it came to me, had a bridge humbucker "rout" which looked like it was done by Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
I cleanly routed the hole larger and square, patched it with matching wood and re-routed the original pickup cavity shape. I just did the woodwork not the refinish, this was a progress shot the owner sent back to me afterwards, before final finishing and ageing.
So *any* solid-colour Fender has to be treated with suspicion unless you have 100% provenance. You might think that if it's that invisible it doesn't matter, but I'd take a bet that no matter the trouble I went to to get the patch perfect and really tight, eventually there will be a shrinkage line.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Why not spend 5k getting the very best playing Fender you can find and just enjoy playing it for the next x number of years before passing it on.
The retailers who claim great expertise/integrity are unlikely to get caught out by many customers, as most buyers know less than the seller.
As as I said in my earlier post - I ‘think’ I’d be able to authenticate a real one - but I wouldn’t be so confident if £15,000 was at stake.
Yes, and odd for a late '59 to still have the 'version 1' neck pickup location that causes that problem.
Plus remember there is often a case of 'the illusion of knowledge' which can be a very powerful tool - Especially to the unsuspecting punter
They are, and always have been one of the blue chip stocks of the Vintage Guitar marketplace and in my opinion this is unlikely to change. They are not so subject to fads or fashion trends as much as some other guitars and I think you will find influential players from every era who have played Strats.
Custom colours are another ball game but luckily (or not!) your budget will not stretch to an original one.
My point with this is that the main dealers can't always tell the provenance of a vintage Strat. Now when my friend had it valued, the refinish was around 15 years old and was lacquer checked and looked correct, so that was part of the issue. Depending when the guitars were refinished and what was used (this was a nitro refin in the correct paint), you might not be able to tell now.
I also have a 1957 that I picked up on ebay for a song, as it had been refinished and refretted within an inch of its life and had DiMarzio pickups on it. I wasn't worried, as I was happy with the refin and was going to change the pickups anyway. It has BK Apaches on it, that were aged with an aged scratchplate, before BK did that service themselves. All I can tell you is that it is a masterpiece of aging. Even the pickup covers show scratches from the height adjustment screws, just as my old guitars do.
I took the 57 to John at Bravewood for him to make me a replica of it, to play out with. At the same time, I had him make me a 64 strat with a humbucker added to the bridge, using the old parts from my 63 (I had picked up a real early 60's scratchplate and converted the 60 back to 3 single coil pickups. I currently play all of them, but for gigs, I use the Bravewoods and one that I put together myself with a copy of the slab rosewood neck.
I just want to show you the pitfalls of vintage guitars. No-one has been able to tell that the Bravewoods are not original (though they have my initials inside the body and on the neck) and even my strat is mistaken for an original (though the decal says Fecker Partsocaster). btw, my 64 Bravewood is in a Selmer case, which might make it look more original.
My old guitars are all bits from others really, but I haven't payed much for them, so I wasn't worried (at one time the 60 even had EMG's on it). I wouldn't want to pay £15k unless you could see that the solder joints were intact and that there was some provenance about the guitar.
One last thing, isn't 7% return pretty high at the moment?
At one stage it was estimated there were more custom colour strats in Londo than fender made.
Also Selmer refinished a lot of strats, Clive Brown does some awesome refinishers but can he honestly say or remember how many he has done. Or even how many were truly original in first place.
In 1980 I was gigging in a band when bassist swapped his natural precision for an 63 Jazz bass in a dark (apparently original) Green finish. Years later he offered me bass for sale but he had since sprayed bass black. I bought it cheap and decided to restore it back to the green, but when refinisher started stripping it back underneath the green was a sunburst.
Who sprayed it green? Selmers, Fender, local guy, all happened years before he swapped it.
Its a minefield and I honestly don't think even the experts can state anymore exactly what age any Fender is.
Vintage Gibsons I believe are much harder to fake.
Interestingly one of the 'tells' is the smell - but it's also possible to put a refinished guitar in an old case, and it will pick up some of that.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein