Re: So what is so special about a 62 strat?
I had a BRW slab board, 1960 Strat. Bought it used from an older gentleman, a retired Marine Sgt. (WWII, Korea, Vietnam) in 1973 and paid $150 for it. He told me that it had originally been a S/B, but the kid he'd bought it from had tried to paint it white, like Jimi's Woodstock Strat, and it was done so poorly that the Sarge had it stripped and then painted his favorite color--yep...OD green metallic, c. 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.
The guitar had been well played. It came to me strung with Fender 13-56 flatwounds and very low action. I had it set up with 9-42s, and it played and sounded great, though the pickups were very weak. I learned a couple of tricks with the vibrato, and it stayed in tune very well. I sold that guitar after my divorce in 1990, for a tidy profit. I didn't want to sell it, but in reality, the guitar was worn out and needed a lot of servicing. I needed the money, so I let it go.
So, I too am also a big fan of the late '59-'63 Strats, and I keep thinking that I want a Fender Custom Shop model like my old '60--though I doubt I'd go for the Bonneville paint job, LOL!
But when I went looking for another Strat a couple of years later, I was thinking about getting a new American Vintage '62, but I was shown a new G&L Legacy, and I was hooked. When I'd sold my Strat, I'd kept my Music Man Sabre II, which was a better guitar for what I was doing at the time. So I knew about Leo Fender's involvement with Music Man, and then the new company he formed after that: G&L. The Legacy was everything I'd loved about the old Strat, yet it was a better guitar. He'd made some improvement over the original design that fixed some of the problem areas and weaknesses of the Strat--without going the "Super-Strat" route and losing the vintage flavor.
So, I'd love to have my old guitar back, or its clone, but for me the Legacy is a much better choice. Sentimentality aside, the Legacy is everything I wanted my Strat to be--I love the tonal versatility and I love the way they play. In fact, I love these guitars so much, I have 11 of them, and 18 total G&Ls. They don't have the high price of the vintage guitars, or of the new Custom Shop models, but they have excellent quality and value.
Yeah, I do wince a bit every time I see a 1960 Strat posted for sale in Vintage Guitar Magazine for $45,000--but to tell the truth, I'm doing just fine without it.
Bill
) There were changes from year to year on pre-CBS Strats. The 1954s were Ash with A3 pickups and one piece maple neck. Very quickly the pickups transitioned to A5, then the bodies included alder. In 1959 the Slab Board rosewood/maple neck and 3-ply Pickguard were introduced. Finally in 1963 (I think?) the neck was transitioned into a laminate rosewood fingerboard. Theoretically all of the pickups from the A5 transistion until the wire changed in ~1964 should be similar but obviously they aren't. Magnet formulas changed, total winds and tension changed etc.
