Re: The Purpleburst Mustang Debate.

FenderBob · Post by **FenderBob** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 6:22 am

luau wrote: I'm not sure what to think of this. Every purported purpleburst that I've seen an image of has a really uneven burst that leads me to believe that it's something other than intentional. The bass above looks pretty even but the second purple guitar seems more typical of the images I've seen. Whatever the case, it's an interesting mystery.

My conclusion so far:
In my opinion, if Fender would have just used their Lake Placid Blue color by itself, they would have just called it “Competition Blue”. I believe it was their intention to add the purple hue to the perimeter of the body and headstock and therefore named the color “Competition Burgundy”. I think the problem is that they weren’t consistent with spraying the purple. Some guitars got quite a bit, while some got a little, and some appeared to have none. Even more interesting is that sometimes a body that has very apparent purple, has a matching headstock that doesn’t appear to have any purple on it.

As “I PLAY LOUD” pointed out, there was an example of a Fender Swinger with this purple perimeter on ebay a while ago. Besides the Swinger and Mustangs, has anybody ever seen a blue Jaguar or Jazzmaster with purple edging? Or on any other vintage Fender guitar for that matter? I sure haven't.

luau · Post by **luau** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:45 am

I've always just assumed the 'Burgandy' was a misprint (a.) 'Burgandy' isn't purple, or even a word for that matter, and b.) I've oodles of CBS era dealer info that's riddled with errors). I can't detect any difference between LPB and my blue mustang but that's just 1 guitar and yellowed lacquer + LBP != purple. Your theory sounds reasonable. I still don't think I'd be inclined to spend 1 penny more on a purple one than I would on a blue one based on my current knowledge level with them though.

edit: I should add that burgundy is misspelled in the '71 price list I have and not just in the linked auction.

FenderBob · Post by **FenderBob** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:49 am

luau wrote: I've always just assumed the 'Burgandy' was a misprint (a.) 'Burgandy' isn't purple, or even a word for that matter, and b.) I've oodles of CBS era dealer info that's riddled with errors). I can't detect any difference between LPB and my blue mustang but that's just 1 guitar and yellowed lacquer + LBP != purple. Your theory sounds reasonable. I still don't think I'd be inclined to spend 1 penny more on a purple one than I would on a blue one based on my current knowledge level with them though.

edit: I should add that burgundy is misspelled in the '71 price list I have and not just in the linked auction.

You made some good points. I used to think the name was a misprint also. Now I think differently just based on the fact that I haven't come across any examples of Lake Placid blue jazzmasters, jaguars, strats, or teles which have traces of purple on them, instead these guitars tend to turn greener over time. Blue Mustangs also green over time but the presence of the purple hue sets them apart from standard Lake Placid Blue. Are ones with a purple perimeter worth more? Maybe not in the book, but I think a lot of collectors like the way they look if more purple is present and may pay more for them.

luau · Post by **luau** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:02 am

I'm glad this thread got started. I know more now about these than I did before and will adjust my thoughts accordingly.

FenderBob · Post by **FenderBob** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:11 am

luau wrote: I'm glad this thread got started. I know more now about these than I did before and will adjust my thoughts accordingly.

I've been struggling with this concept for a while also.

You gotta love Fender, almost anything was possible. I've seen a competition mustang with gold hardware and have seen a handful of competition models where the stripes went all the way around the back of the guitar. ???

eupat · Post by **eupat** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:13 am

I've some pics of a purple burst Swinger :
on the last pic you can see the purple even under the pickguard.

heavenstreet · Post by **heavenstreet** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:37 pm

See that to me just looks like a faded LPB. This will add more confusion but Billy Gibbons also owns a purple Swinger... solid purple too, like the Mustangs I'm speaking of. In the world of Mustangs I'm not sure color has TOO much to do with price.

Post by **Jay** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:06 pm

I can clearly see two separate colors of paint in the last photo above. There's the greenish blue in the pickup cavities and the bluish purple in the neck cavity. That's pretty damn solid evidence of some sorta bursted finish IMO.

Edit: I took a go at removing the horrible yellow cast from this image brought the contrast/saturation up (a bit more then natural on purpose). I'm not so convinced anymore I guess. Seems like the greenish is probably the yellow wood mixing with the thin layer of blue paint.

FenderBob · Post by **FenderBob** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:49 pm

Thanks for adding the Swinger pics!! Those are the pics I was referring to earlier.

Few more of the mystical purple hue....

jcamlis · Post by **jcamlis** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:48 pm

But it looks like for the most part its the paint having done something weird over time, whether most people know it or no all paint continues to have a chemical reaction long after its mixed and has dried. And I'm not jsut talking guitar paint take a look at walls in a house or an actual piece of art like a painting. What I think may have had an impact on these to cause the mythical "purple burst" effect is a combination of what the guitar was primed with underneath and what the actual mix of chemicals and pigments they fired from the gun were that day. If you want proof of this the next time you paint say a piece of furniture prime it with a different color other than white and see how it differs, colors like reds pop more if you prime them with a silver and they differ completely if you prime them with say an orange. Wha I think may have happened, and this might not make sense to everybody, but is the ones that appear purple may have started off life as say a red mustang or what not in the plant and then they Fender like they have been known to do decided they had enough of the guitars in a certain color but they prepainted a batch already so they just fired the blue over top and it changed the color over the years, think of how many strats have a sunburst under the actual paint job from that period. Fender was notorious for reusing bodies that they had already painted if the final coat wasn't good or if they had too many and just shooting a new color over top of it without stripping and repriming because it was a hell of a lot cheaper and quicker. This might explain the purple burst, especially when you think of what the main colors of the mustang had been for years, if they had a batch that they had sitting around and there was a huge demand for the "competiotion burgandy" that came in and they just repainted it over the years the colors would do that weird thing paint tends to do and you get a different color.
This is something I learned long ago in art school and in my art history classes, paint keeps changing over the years which is a huge problem plaguing many works of art deemed to be masterpieces , its more slow and gradual with oils but with a laquer based paint like nitrocellulose I imagine the reaction could be a lot faster.

Thats just my theory on the "purple burst" mustang I mean its an urban legend in its own right, since there is no way of knowing how many have ended up like that.

Jets · Post by **Jets** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:30 am

Why doesn't someone just ask an original purpleburst owner what colour the guitar was when they bought it?

FenderBob · Post by **FenderBob** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:38 am

Jets wrote: Why doesn't someone just ask an original purpleburst owner what colour the guitar was when they bought it?

I don't know any original owners of comp. blue mustangs

Anyone else know of someone?

Professor Plum · Post by **Professor Plum** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:52 am

i have no idea about any of this but i gotta say its really interesting reading and the purpleburst looks rad!

fenderjapan · Post by **fenderjapan** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 12:36 pm

One more purple burst 'stang

fenderjapan · Post by **fenderjapan** » Mon May 05, 2008 9:52 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/1969-Fender-Competi ... dZViewItem