RARE 1963 Fender Strat Fiesta Red (Hank Marvin, Gary Moore) Vintage American USA Guitar with COA!

This is an incredible 1-Owner 1963 Fender Stratocaster finished in the most desirable Fiesta Red, an original dealer refinish prior to sale to the general public! We acquired this guitar from an elderly gentleman who purchased the guitar new from a Fender dealer near Edgeware Road in London when Hank Marvin & The Shadows were all the rage and Fiesta Red reigned supreme! This beauty is 58 years old.....over half a century.....an outstanding investment that will continue to appreciate in value. A guitar like this just does not come on the market very often. The original owner stated he bought this guitar new from the dealer, who had refinished it in Fiesta Red. This is well documented to have been commonplace at prominent UK dealers during this time due to the popularity of British guitarist Hank Marvin and his famous Fiesta Red strat used with The Shadows. The guitar has been taken to the leading UK vintage guitar expert "Dr. Robert" Robbie Gladwell for verification and a full setup. He confirms the refinish is of the era and correlates with the original owner's account. Gladwell has a monthly column for Guitarist magazine and has been certified to do official work for Gibson and Fender here in the UK.  He has played with many famous artists over the years, a few of which are listed below: BB King, Suzi Quatro, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Jack Bruce, Soul legend Percy Sledge, Little Eva, members of the BBC 'Eastenders' cast on solo recordings, Pete York (Spencer Davis Group), Frank Gambale (Chick Korea's electric band) Twink (Pink Fairies) and Ted McKenna (Womack & Womack).

On the subject of UK market 60's Fiesta Red Fenders sold new, GuitarHQ published this guidance:

In the early 1960s, due to the popularity of Hank Marvin of the band the Shadows, the Stratocaster was THE guitar to own in the United Kingdom. In 1961, Fender was imported by Jennings (the makers of Vox amps), and in 1962 Fender was also imported by Selmer. Both Jennings and Selmer gave way to Arbiters as the sole UK distributor in the Summer of 1965 (perhaps because Fender didn't like having their products distributed by successful UK amp makers). But all the importers seemed to have brought Fender guitars into the UK *without* cases, probably because local cases were available for less money than the Tolex Fender cases (the Canadian Fender importers did the same thing). This in turn increased the possibility of damaged finishes as the guitar were imported into England, which helps lend itself to the following story.

Urban legand has it that English guitar shops found it easier to sell guitars that looked like Hank Marvin's Fiesta Red Stratocaster, than the standard sunburst finished Strat. Therefore, a lot of Fender Strats were rumored to be refinished from Sunburst to red on arrival in the UK to match Hank Marvin's guitar. The resulting color used by the Fender UK importers was not as red as Fender's factory "Fiesta Red", and was more of a "Salmon Pink" color. This of course added more to the confusion about what exactly Fiesta Red was, and the Salmon Pink color rumor.

Most of the red UK painted Strats where done right over the original sunburst. Also the UK painters did not seem to use the "nail hole" method of painting these guitars (lucky for us). Hence these 1960s refinished-when-new UK Strats will usually have painted nail holes, red-over-sunbuarst, and non-Tolex/weird cases. Therefore they are pretty easy to identify."

This rare Fiesta Red 1963 Fender Strat is part of the world famous instrument collection at Essex Recording Studios. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok @essexrecordingstudios

International buyers are welcome! We ship to any country in the world! This guitar will be packed and shipped with love, care and respect in its hard case you see pictured here! Of course there are marks from 58 years of use as shown in the photos, but this is about as good as you can expect to find one of these! As we are not experts on vintage guitars, refer to the pictures, videos and COA to assess condition and originality. There are more videos of the neck and body if needed. Delivery to the UK mainland will be done in person by producer James Curtis-Thomas. Delivery to Europe can be arranged for private in-person delivery at minimal added cost.  You are welcome to collect the guitar in person if you are local to our studio in Southend-on-Sea, England at post code SS1 1AB directly opposite Southend Central station.

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