Fender Mustang 1973 "Sunburst"

1973 Fender Mustang Sunburst with pearloid pickguard in nice original shape, used condition. Some wear in body and back of the neck. See pictures for further details. Includes gig-bag. frets in good working condition. All original electronics working properly, no buzzing.

The Mustang has an offset waist, reminiscent of the Jazzmaster, but its overall styling closely followed the existing student models the Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic, the slight waist offset being the main change. After the release of the Mustang, the Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic were redesigned using the Mustang body; These were branded the Musicmaster II and Duo-Sonic II, but the decals were not consistently applied.

All three Mustang-bodied models (Mustang, Musicmaster II and Duo-Sonic II) were offered with optionally the 21 fret 22.5-inch (or 3/4 scale) neck, or a 22 fret 24-inch neck, but the 24-inch was overwhelmingly more popular and 3/4 scale examples are rare.

This short scale, combined with a unique and extremely direct tremolo armwould make the Mustang a cult guitar in the 1990s. Before that, its relatively low cost and marketing as a student guitar made it an obvious candidate for aftermarket upgrades, particularly pickup changes and also amateur finishes. Its wiring with the original pickups also lent itself to custom modifications..

In 1982 Fender discontinued both the Mustang and the Musicmaster II. These were the last of the offset student models to be made. Fender replaced the Mustang line with the short-lived Fender Bullet line of guitars and basses before relegating production of their student guitars to their Squier division.

The Mustang has two angled single-coil pickups, each with an on-off-on switch, and a master tone and volume control. Just using the two pickup switches allow the pickups to be used either singly or in parallel. The second on position reverses the phase of the selected pickup, allowing the pickups to be either in or out of phase when in parallel.

With this guitar Fender introduced their Dynamic Vibrato tailpiece, which together with a floating bridge forms the Mustang vibrato system. The floating bridge concept is common to the Fender floating vibrato developed for the Jazzmaster, but on the Mustang the saddles have only a single string slot, while on other Fender guitars there are multiple slots to allow limited adjustment of the string spacing.

Lots of players, professionals and amateurs use this guitar. Bands like , My Bloody Valentine,  or the late  are known for using them on stage and in the studio.

Specs:

• Ash body
• Maple neck
• Rosewood fretboard
• 2 single coil pickups
• Fender Dynamic vibrato bridge