1968 sunburst Fender Stratocaster
I don't have a photo of my Strat during the time that I had it. I got it for AU$480 at a pawnbroker's auction in Sydney Australia about 1983 or so, which I was pretty astounded by because there were a few other guitar dealers there that day. There were 2 mics included with it too. For whatever reason, hardly anybody else placed a bid. The neck was dated 22/9/68, serial number 182857. I love the way Strats look but I hate pretty much everything else about them.
When I decided to sell it a few months later an old friend asked if I wouldn't mind swapping the body. He had a '67 Strat that was white and he'd always wanted a sunburst. Considering they were almost the same year and I was getting rid of it anyway, I said OK. So we spent an afternoon taking them apart and putting them back together with different bodies. We each kept all our hardware, it was only the wooden bodies that were changed. I bought a sunburst one for $480 and sold a white one for $720 a few months or so later.
My friend still has that guitar (pictured below and at right). The sunburst has faded and changed colour quite a lot, it has done thousands of gigs so it has a LOT of wear and tear, and for a while had a new-ish Squire maple neck. The original rosewood board was so pitted and had been through so many re-frets that the fingerboard would have had to be replaced, so he decided to get a new maple neck instead. The pickups are EMGs. He has since restored the original neck - see pic at right taken at the end of 2020.
A 1959 Les Paul with pickguard removed,
showing how much a finish can fade over time.
Source: The vintage guitar guy
Then in early 2021 I was contacted by a guy who saw this web page and realised his guitar was the same serial number, so he's the guy who bought mine in the mid '80s! Thanks to him for sending me photos of it, including one with its original case.
