2007 1960 Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Stratocaster Heavy Relic, Vintage White / Lake Placid Blue, with Original Hard Case and C.O.A., Price Reduction!!

This Custom Shop Strat was purchased brand new by the original owner at Matt Umanov Guitars in Greenwich Village, NYC. The store had commissioned the Fender Custom Shop to make a few custom builds for them, and Jason Smith is the Fender CS Master Builder who built this guitar. (Jason Smith joined the Fender Custom Shop in 1995, and in 2006 completed a five-year apprenticeship under acclaimed Senior Master Builder John English. His bio is on Fender’s Custom Shop website.)

The Certificate of Authenticity shows that his guitar was completed on 05/22/2007. The original owner is a friend of Pittsburgh Guitars who knows a lot about guitars and takes great care of his instruments. Here’s what he told us about its origin: When he bought this guitar, it was not exactly advertised as a “Masterbuilt” Fender. At the time, Masterbuilt Fenders were consistently MAP’ed at $5,000-5,500, and normal team-built Custom Shop guitars were anywhere between $2,500-3,500, depending on certain specs and/or Limited Run CS series. This Stratocaster sold new at $4700. The store-specific commission build means that both the Fender Custom Shop and Matt Umanov decided to put normal CS ‘60s pickups instead of the Abigail Ybarra hand-wound pickups, making the guitar slightly more affordable. The difference in the pickups explains the price difference of this Stratocaster compared to other Fender Masterbuilt Strats of that time period. Jason Smith has his insignia decal (gold at the time) on the back of the headstock, and his signatures are on the neck, body, and COA, verifying that the guitar was built entirely by one builder.

The guitar is heavy relic’d with nitrocellulose finish, Vintage White over Lake Placid Blue body paint. The neck is quartersawn maple with a select dark Indian rosewood fingerboard. Smith, in an interview, has said that he is particular about selecting dark rosewood for his builds. The neck also has a 9.5” radius with Dunlop 6105 tall/narrow frets. The body is a very lightweight, resonant swamp ash. The hardware is a mixture of relic’d nickel (tuners, saddles, strap buttons) and chrome (bridge plate, input jack plate). It has a bone nut, mint green pickguard, and aged white pickup covers w/ ‘60s Fender Custom Shop Strat pickups.

Everything is stock on this guitar with the exception of the treble bleed circuit installed on the volume pot. The original owner had Lollar pickups installed, but had the stock pickups put back in before we purchased the guitar. The fret wear is very minimal. Though it is a heavy relic’d instrument, the guitar is in excellent condition and the original owner took great care of it. This Strat is currently set up as a “hard tail.”  If you would like use of the whammy/vibrato arm, please let us know at time of purchase. It comes with the hard case and Fender Certificate of Authenticity.