In 1979 Fender celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Stratocaster, the original of which was introduced in 1954, with the first "anniversary" instrument.

This was the first Fender instrument to be issued in a pre-determined and numbered, limited quantity. The first 500 or so instruments produced were finished in Pearl White. However, due to the instability of the finish and the checking that resulted, many were recalled and re-finished in Porsche Silver.

The 1979 Anniversary Stratocaster is significant for a number of reasons. It represents both a look behind and a look ahead for Fender. Noteworthy features include –

• Reversion to the four bolt neck plate
• Abandonment of the "bullet" truss rod adjustment in favour of the truss rod adjustment at the body end of the neck

Features:-

• Body: Exclusive Fender offset contoured waist design.
• Neck: Detachable hard rock maple neck and curved maple fingerboard graduated for fast action and comfortable playing.
• Adjustable truss rod nut at headstock.
• 25½" scale.
• 21 medium nickel-silver frets.
• 6 Fender closed back machine heads.
• Four-bolt neckplate with "1954 - 1979 25th Anniversary" logo
• Bridge: 2-way adjustable design. 6 individually adjustable bridge sections. Pickups: Three adjustable and grounded, wide range, high output single coil pickups in a shielded cavity.
• Five position pickup selector switch.
• Synchronized tremolo with swing-away arm.
• Master volume and two tone controls.

This 25th Anniversary Strat has been a collectors item. So many of these 25th strats have had a hard life and been hard played and treated. Not this baby! This is a stand out and is priced with the according premium.

The original tuners are strong, truss rod is fine and it plays comfortably with a medium low action.

Weight is 9.1 lbs

This one ticks a lot of boxes if you are after a 25 year time warp.

Famous seventies Strat tone

With that famous seventies Strat tone, that powered so many # 1 worldwide hits, you gain extra cutting power here with 10lb 2oz of solid Ash body – definitely into the same territory as Les Paul weight – which all translates into classic tone, plus a ringing eleven seconds of natural sustain!

Like new

As we noted at the front, cosmetically, the guitar is in absolutely stunning condition. Other than some very minor play wear on the scratchplate, there’s no dings, no scratches, no anything to detract from the pristine silver finish. Frets are like new, the Maple fingerboard is like new, the bridge cover “ashtray” is like new. There’s no wear on either the headstock logos or the ANNVERSARY logo on the bass-side horn. The knobs and pickups look like they left the Fender factory in Corona yesterday.

Serial number:: 255853

Serial numbers on the 25th Anniversary model all began with 25, with production ending at 9999, which places our model here, at 255858, pretty much in the middle of the run.