Huw Price’s Nitty Gritty
Huw embarks on a project to restore this dream guitar to its former glory
Inever imagined that Iwould own a 1950s Stratocaster. The closest I’d come was when my guitar-playing school teacher tipped me off about a 50s Strat for sale at Livewire Music in Cardiff. Having looked it over, I decided the scruffy black refinish and generally dirty condition didn’t justify the £200 asking price. Clearly, I wasn’t cut out for a career in finance, but in my defence, Imust point out that this happened in 1983. Back then, you could still find all-original pre-CBS Strats for under four figures and nobody that Iknew was doing relic finishes or selling vintage parts.
Fast forward to the early Noughties and my youthful enthusiasm for SRV started gravitating towards his brother Jimmie’s subtler playing style as well as his taste in guitars. I’d also had the opportunity to play a handful of ’56 and ’57 examples and was knocked out by the clean elegance of their styling, sleekly sculpted bodies and sublime soft Vneck profiles.
Icame to prefer the earlier pickups and maple ’boards, and the way those guitars seemed to possess more than a hint of 50s Telecaster. To scratch the itch, I even built a partscaster ’54 replica and it remained my main guitar for over a decade until I received a fateful phone call from a now ‐defunct guitar shop.
Once In A Lifetime
At the time Iwas doing occasional vintage restoration work for the shop and they asked me to appraise a Stratocaster that was part of a large collection they had acquired. Having been assured it was a ’57 model, they wanted a second opinion.
Soon after, a non-original case arrived containing a bizarre-looking gold Strat. My first impressions were not good, but the moment I lifted the guitar from its case to gauge the weight and balance, my feelings changed. When I tuned it up and strummed a chord, Iknew it was something special –even if I wasn’t entirely sure what that was.
I spent the next few hours examining every part in minute detail, wrote my appraisal and emailed it to the shop. In short, I concluded the guitar comprised an October 1956 alder body with aMarch 1957 neck with mostly vintage parts. I couldn’t claim that all the pieces left the Fender factory on the same guitar on the same day, but it was definitely a 90 per cent original pre-CBS Strat.
The shop phoned to thank me for my work and dropped a bombshell by telling me how much they were planning to sell it for. I won’t reveal the exact figure, but it was more like a no-brainer than a no-hoper and I felt like Ihad bee
