Fender Custom Shop 60th Anniversary 1954 Heavy Relic Stratocaster

The Fender Custom Shop celebrates the diamond jubilee of one of the greatest electric guitars with the 60th Anniversary 1954 Heavy Relic Stratocaster guitar. This special guitar honors the Stratocaster's very first model year and is finely crafted with a rich selection of features and appointments, in addition to a heavy relic treatment that evokes decades of use, abuse and hard-fought wear and tear.

The one-piece ash body is wonderfully light and responsive. It bares a battered nitrocellulose lacquer finish in the model's original Two-Color Sunburst that doesn't inhibit in any way the body's natural brightness or resonance.

The one-piece quartersawn maple neck has a wonderfully comfortable 1954 "U"-shaped profile and tinted lacquer finish. The maple fingerboard has a 9.5" radius, slightly flatter than the original, and twenty-one 6105 frets for smooth modern playability. The Master Builders at Fender do an amazing job of getting these necks to feel broken in from "decades of play" with loads of life left.

Three 1954 single-coil Stratocaster pickups deliver a singing original-era voice. They're not overwound and have just the right amount of response to capture all the gorgeous tone that the ash body and maple neck produce. A 5-way switch, instead of the original 3-way, is added to this vintage recreation, bringing the mixed-pickup settings that Strat players rely on.

Other features include a single-ply white pickguard, synchronized tremolo bridge with six "patent pending" saddles and serial number-stamped trem plate (a special 1954 touch), vintage-style tuners and nickel-chrome hardware. The guitar comes in a tweed "center-pocket" case with Stratocaster 60th Anniversary embroidery and an included 60th Anniversary commemorative book.