This is a classic American made guitar. This one has a black maple finish, mine was not black but it did have the maple woodwork. It has a standard Fender bridge with a tremolo bar, has a maple neck and fingerboard. It also has three classic single-coil pickups, with a volume knob and two tone knobs as well as a 5 way pickup selector switch below the strings. It also has the typical Stratocaster style input which can be a problem if you use certain cables, however that is a rare issue.

UTILIZATION

The feel of this guitar is phenomenal. It's an old one, but it plays way better than a newer guitar usually does, assuming it's been maintained well. I think that this is a great guitar for playing electric country and classic rock, it has that great twang that comes naturally to the Strat. It also works really well for some surf and lighter fusion stuff as well. Basically, this is a fantastic Strat from a great year.

SOUNDS

The sound of this guitar is phenomenal. Mine was refitted with newer single-coil pickups, but I received the impression that they were similar to the originals. Therefore, I can say that this guitar probably sounded then, and still does sound, remarkably clear, bright, and sharp. It's not the heaviest-hitting guitar out there, because of the single-coiled pickups, but it does make a great sound for other purposes. The bridge pickup is almost piercingly bright (in a good way), and the neck pickup is smooth and solid all the way through. The neck pickup actually sounds phenomenal for blues playing.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a great guitar in many ways, not the least of which being the sound. I'd say that finding one of these at a halfway decent price is going to be very difficult for most people. Therefore, I'd have to recommend buying it through a site like Craigslist or something, mainly because a store is going to make this way more expensive.