Here’s a fascinating guitar. This represents the true definition of a crossover year guitar and in this case it is a crossover between 1964 and 1965 with many cool features from both of these classic years…

This guitar, without a doubt started life in late 1964 and must have left the Fullerton factory in early 1965. It has a November ‘64 neck stamp with an all original, very late, spaghetti logo that is way cool.. It has pots dated 28th week of 1964, the pickups are very early, grey bottom pickups that look like 18th December 1964 hand written dates (very difficult to decipher) and it has probably one of the first, plastic pickguards that appeared in January 1965, a very early 1965 serial number with an 1965, early logo case. Phew…!

In addition to this, it has a lovely, crossover burst that is more like the burst you see on 1963/4 Strats rather than the ‘target type’ bust you get on 65/66’s. All finish is original with no touch ups, or over spray and all hardware is correct too.

The volume pot has some solder touch up as the previous owner had a dimarzio in the bridge position for a while but thankfully, saved the original pickup without clipping the wires and it is now back in the guitar, where it belongs. The switch looks to be an original 3 way which someone has cleverly notched to make selecting the in between positions a bit easier than normal. You cannot however see any difference to the switch or pickguard cosmetically.

All three pickups sound superb and this particular Strat seems to have a lot of natural sustain. The pickups are very well balanced and actually sound more like early black bottom, pre-CBS pickups rather than later 60’s grey bottom ones.

A very nice playing guitar too with a fast neck that is medium chunky and has very little wear on the frets. One thing I only noticed when I did the photos today is the tuners are a mix of single and double line Klusons. There is no evidence that any other tuners have been fitted and as 64/65 was crossover year for these tuners, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this is how it left the factory.

I had a very late 1964 Telecaster with a November 1964 neck date that also had a late spaghetti logo too not so long ago. That too had early 1965 features and a very early maple cap neck. This Strat would make a great partner for that one, whoever has it now…