This Strat was produced in 1974, as the serial number (562 484) with the triangular backside plate and the big F indicate. This is confirmed by the numbers on the neck : 0901 – 1614

09 is the code for Stratocasters

01 says it’s a rosewood fretboard

16 means it was made on the 16th week of the year

4 confirms the year as 1974

1 says it was produced in the forst day of the week, a Monday.

Meaning the guitar came out of the Fender workshop on April 15, 1974

This guitar has a colorful history. I bought it in 1979 from Philip Guy, Buddy Guy’s brother. I was living on the South Side of Chicago at the time, regularly gigging around town with Phil and other sidemen. I’ve played that guitar around the world ever since, until a traffic accident deprived me of the use of my left hand. Yeah, it sucks. A few years after the fact, I’m ready to part with my Strat, hoping in can find another life in somebody else’s hands.

I sell it with the original soft case (never used a flight case, always took it with me aboard airplanes as carry-on). About 20 years ago, I chaned the nut I swapped the nut and saddles for graphite ones (stays in tune better, and strings almost never break), but I kept the original ones, so they’ll go along with the Strat, of course. The only thing missing is the tremolo bar. Phil hated it, and I must say I never had the use for one.