frettedamerican...
The Rarest of the Rare! The Earliest "Maple Cap" We Have Ever Seen!
Complete With the Original Hang-Tag
This super rare June 1965, maple-cap Stratocaster weighs just 7.40 lbs. and has a nice, fat nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. One-piece alder body contoured on back and lower bass bout. One-piece maple neck with a wonderful medium profile. Maple-cap fretboard with 21 original medium-to-thin frets and black dot position markers. Small headstock with transitional "Fender" logo in gold with black trim, "Stratocaster" in black beside it, and "With Synchronized Tremolo" and four patent numbers in black below ("Pat. 2,573,254 2,960,900 2,741,146 3,143,028"). Single "butterfly" string tree with nylon spacer. Individual "dual-line" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (each one stamped on the underside "D-169400 / Patent No."). Three light-gray bottom, white plastic-covered single-coil pickups with staggered polepieces and outputs of 5.91k, 6.10k, and 6.00k. On the underside of each pickup are the following black pen markings "9.28.65 Bernie 3" (neck) 'Bernie 9.28.65 6" (middle) and "RH 9.28.65 16" (bridge). 'Three-layer (white/black/white) plastic pickguard with eleven screws and full size aluminium shield. Three controls (one volume, two tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. The potentiometers are all dated "304 6532" (Stackpole, August, 1965). Inside the neck pickup cavity in pencil is written "V S O". Jack socket in body face. White plastic knobs with green lettering. Fender "Synchronized Tremolo" combined bridge & tailpiece. This guitar is in near mint condition, with no fretboard wear, virtually no fret wear, only the absolute bare minimum of belt buckle marking on the back (which you can't see unless you hold the guitar up against a light), a few tiny marks on the sides, and the bare minimum of body checking. On the white plastic tremolo cover on the back of the guitar, two of the corners (approximately 1/8 and 1/4 inch in size) at the bottom have broken away where the screws have been over tightened. With all that said this exceptionally rare guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover, Also the original twelve-page Fender Stratocaster Instruction Manual with matching serial number. Housed in its original Fender black hardshell case with black leather ends and red plush lining (9.25).