Story time: one cold tuesday afternoon in march, on my way to the office, I was browsing Italian marketplace and the ad on very top caught my eye: Fender Stratocaster with OG 1966 neck, van zandt pickups, sounds scary (that's how it was translated by google translator). The pictures were terrible, low res and very dark, but the guitar really captivated my attention and the price was almost too nice, so I messaged the seller. There was obvious language barrier (I don't speak italian and he didn't speak any english, but google translator and DeepL helped
) and after couple of messages, I decided to go for it and bought myself plane tickets to Milano for sunday that week. Guy messaged me on friday if I will really fly in to get the guitar, cause he's got some other buyers interested, my heart almost stopped beating, but luckily he stuck to the deal. One flight, car rental and one hour drive later, I found myself in a beautiful city of Biella, Italy. Giovanni (the seller) was great, he actually managed to speak some english after all and it was a really pleasant afternoon hanging out with him
The guitar sounded amazing from the get go and we quickly made a deal.This strat is one of the best guitars I've ever played. Seriously. I owned a lot of strats and played even more of them, but this one is something else. I did straight comparison with all stock '64 that belongs to one of my friends and I honestly liked it better than the 64. I've always been a huge Hendrix nerd and this is my childhood dream come true: I had a poster of Jimi Hendrix holding guitar that looked exactly like this above my bed.
Now about the guitar - I know following:
The neck is OG 1966 made of beautiful birdseye maple. refretted with jumbo frets some time ago. Has a clear coat overspray. I put replica tuners in, since the old ones were worn to death. Some fretboard dots were changed as well.
The pickups: Van Zandt blues(?) I believe. They sound amazing.
Pickguard is supposedly from a '73 strat
Bridge: older reissue? Two part. Massive block. Fender saddles
The body is a big mistery. It kinda looks like genuine Fender body, but the neck doesn't really fit in it and I bought it with bunch of shims installed, fixing the angle and overall fit. He told me he bought it in Texas some time ago (2008 or so) and that it he was told it is a Fender body from the 80s. It is very light and made of alder. He thought it is from the 80s like the neck plate, but I doubt it. It is definitely refinished, with thin layer of nitro. Some relicing was done as well.
I haven't seen this kind of route anywhere, except for a couple of vintage Fender bodies, but I don't think this is a vintage body.
This looks like AVRI right? I was originally suspecting a Warmoth body, but the paint holes and worm route are different.
The contours are nice and deep
Neckplate: 80s / Early 90s American Standard
I am super curious about what the body is. The guitar sounds so good that I don't really care about it's origin, I am just obsessed with IDing stuff
I am going to make some demos of how it sounds later. I already started to use it in the studio and on the road, but I can't find any decent recordings right now.
Any help with IDing the parts would be really appretiated
