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 All Strats are the same, rrright? It might be just me. But I've never played any two Strats that are actually "the same." Every single one of them has had its own identity. Sharing the raw Strat basics, yes. But never exactly the same. Some were significantly different. And the others, merely similar. Except for these two.  Finding Strat #1 was easy luck. But when and where will you ever find matched pair? Well, here. I bought both of them from Seattle's Guitar Center sales racks. The first one, a maple neck sunburst, was purchased soon after Fender Guitar announced they were discontinuing their American Standard line. So I estimated GC would want to get rid of their unsold American Standards. And I was right. Got an excellent deal. A year later, on Christmas Eve, I found #2. With nothing to do, I decided to shop for a rosewood neck American Standard at Guitar Center. And amazingly, GC was open. I tried a couple of unsold rosewood Strats. Found out why they were unsold. I was barely out the door when The Muse called me on her mental telepathy phone and growled, "There's another rosewood on the rack. Go back and play it." And there it was. A rosewood American Standard. Identical to my maple neck version. These two nearly identical American Standard Strats? What happened? They must have been built in parallel. At the end of the production run. They're both sunburst. Both of them are the heaviest weight Strats I've ever encountered. No one would want to go out on stage and play these two for two hours. So they were meant to be recording guitars. Both have factory Custom Shop Fat 50s pickups. And a build quality I've only seen on Custom Shop instruments. So, what was Fender up to? My guess is, they still had some leftover Strat parts. And decided to have the Custom Shop build a couple of actual recording Strats. And just put them out there. On the racks. See what happens. Was there a market? Nope. Just me. Are they perfect? Nearly. A few button marks from being out on the demo racks. Other than that, they're the two best electric recording guitars I've ever played. ________________________________________________________  For more info on ABL instruments, please email Rod Guevara at: elhotrod32@yahoo.com -- Site Guide Home Text and visual content are copyrighted. All rights reserved. © 2026 |
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