Vintage Fender Stratocaster 1972, Lightweight, Nitro, Custom Shop Ybarra pickups, Emerson harness

Here is a 1972 Fender Stratocaster. The guitar is not 100% original, but I used vintage and high-end parts putting it together as I was not planning on selling it. Sadly, I must part with it. The guitar is ready to rock and has all the outer “vintage vibe” with some newer stuff under the hood. To some this will be a big advantage. The Micro-Tilt system has also been gone over and all the screws were tightened to maximize stability of  the neck. 

The parts are worth more than what I am now asking. I would hate to part it out but I guess I will if no one is interested in the whole guitar.

Vintage parts include- Tuners with mounting screws (they hold tune well). Neck plate and screws. Tremolo, saddles, trem arm and tip (threads are good), springs, claw and screws. Jack cup. Original strap buttons and screws.

The pickguard, pickup covers, knobs and switch tip are all from a 1971 Strat. The pickguard had 3x small holes from a synth pickup between mounted the tremolo and the bridge pickup. It also had 2x holes from mounting a different pickup selector switch. These holes were professionally fixed by chemically dissolving vintage plastic from another pickguard into a paste to fill the holes. The color matches very well and the repair is barely noticeable from a couple of feet back.

The body is very nice grained, lightweight swamp ash. The whole guitar only weighs 7lbs 10oz! This was an early guitar that was finished in thin nitro over the Fullerplast sealing coat. The original nitro shows the delicate checking we all love and there are some larger crazing marks in the Fullerplast under coat. There is no routing in the control cavity or anywhere else. A rare survivor of the 1980’s!

The neck is in good shape with a 1972 date stamp in the old style like the 1960’s guitars. The neck was professionally refretted just over a year ago. The frets are taller than vintage frets but still narrow like the original frets. The frets show no wear and were recently polished. The neck has a nice chunky “U” shape to it and feels full for being a 1 5/8” nut. This is also one of the rarer necks that has a single string tree just like the earlier Fenders.  Set up with 10-52 strings.

The pickups are rare Abigail Ybarra initialed Custom Shop ’69 pickups. The electronics is an Emerson wiring harness. Their harness includes a proprietary paper in oil capacitor, a treble bleed and a 5-way CRL switch.

The pickguard and back plate screws are gently aged nickel. The back plate is from a 1990’s RI and is single ply like some of the early 1970’s Strats. There are new holes in the body from the back plate being mounted but they are covered and there are no other body modifications other than these.

Fender tweed case is similar to some of the cases used in Custom Shop guitars. It has the center pocket with a neck stabilizer and nicer lining. Ships lower 48 states. Plays great sounds great and needs nothing! Feel free to ask questions.

Video cycles through all five pickup selections. It starts with the Purple Haze riff which is the bridge pickup into a fuzz and then direct in the amp. The rest of the licks is just the guitar plugged direct into the amp. Recorded with a SM57 into a cheap Behringer digital converter then into QuickTime. As basic as you can get.