My guitar is a pale blue (termed Daphne Blue by Fender) apparently all the 50's strats were painted the same cellulose colours as the cars of the period, except of course the 'Buddy Holly' variant which is natural wood.
The body is I believe alder and the neck is maple with a rather golden coating which will in time become rather faded and worn giving the guitar a real vintage look.
The first thing on strumming the un- amplified guitar is the kind of springy crisp tone. Plugged in the guitar produces all the classic strat tones, from Hendrix to Clapton to Knoppfler to Blackmore and a million other guitarists in between. Being modelled on an original 50's means the neck has a more rounded fretboard this gives a slightly higher action giving open chords a louder definition. The reason being that back in this very early period of guitar history there was less demand for fretapping, legato etc which incidetally are quite possible on this guitar but are easier to perform on a modern Ibanez or Jackson with a lower action.
One thing worth noting is the neck is a 'v' profile which basically means the neck has a very slight v shape tapering particularly near the headstock other profiles are c and d. V profiles tend to have smaller necks making this an ideal instrument to learn on albeit in the more expensive price bracket.
Mexican versus US. Originally all fenders were made in the US. During the late 70's however owing to an influx of extremely high quality guitars coming from Japan mainly Tokai Fender was forced to ship some of its manufacturing to Japan to compete on costs. These were known as Squires. Production later shifted to Korea. The Mexican side of the production started some three years ago. The Mexican strat is basically a US guitar that has been shipped, assembled and set up in Mexico again to keep costs down.
It has to be said that the finish and set up of the guitar were absolutely faultless no fret buzz or string choking.
It is worth noting that I paid £500 for the above guitar, I feel representing excellent value for money To buy an original in mint codition could set one back as much as £40,000. Would it sound or play any better? probably to the vast majority of players not £39,500 better anyway. Overall if you need a sound well proven workhorse you could do a lot lot worse.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Needs some detail on the tremelo system, pick ups and controls - apart from that I enjoyed reading the op !
CheekyGrandad 18.01.2003 19:25
A nice description. Norman
twinks5 18.01.2003 17:18
I wanted to give you a vh, but had to consider how a person with no knowledge of a guitar would view this op.....you should give a better explanation of the componants of a guitar i.e. what is a fender??? Will happily rerate this if you put this info in......otherwise a good op~Sarah
![The Strat Pack - The 50th Anniversary Of The Fender Stratocaster - Live [DVD] [2004]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/79671300.jpg "The Strat Pack - The 50th Anniversary Of The Fender Stratocaster - Live [DVD] [2004]")
![The Strat Pack: Live in Concert - 50 Years of the Fender Stratocaster [Blu-ray] [2005] [US Import]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/70667106.jpg "The Strat Pack: Live in Concert - 50 Years of the Fender Stratocaster [Blu-ray] [2005] [US Import]")
very helpful by (57%):
helpful by (43%):
![The Strat Pack - The 50th Anniversary Of The Fender Stratocaster - Live [Blu-ray] [2004]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/81300951.jpg)
