This is one of those folklore legends that has taken on a life of its own. Here’s the real story – and it’s actually a tale of two guitars. In 1976, right before he started Seymour Duncan Pickups, Seymour was doing guitar repair at Jensen’s Music, here in Santa Barbara. While he was there, a guy from Nipomo, California named Richard Green brought a ’57 Strat to Seymour to fix and refinish – he wanted the new color to be see-through root beer, like Bonnie Raitt’s guitar. Seymour remembers the original color as a light mint green; probably the same finish Fender used on some lap steels.
Seymour sent the body to his friend and colleague
Wayne Charvel for refinishing. Wayne was an authorized Fender repairman. But Wayne couldn’t refinish the body because the dings and nicks were too deep for a see-through finish. So Wayne used another Fender body, which he sprayed see-through root beer, and he sent it back to Seymour. (Back in the ‘70s, when you sent a neck or body to Fender for replacement, the practice was to saw the original in half and throw it away. However, in this case, the original body wasn’t destroyed...)
The original neck went to another Santa Barbara repairman
Phil Kubicki, who refinished it. It eventually made its way back to Seymour who re-plated the hardware gold, put the guitar back together (with the new body) and returned it to Richard Green. The neck plate said serial number #0001, but Seymour knew it wasn’t accurate since Fender didn’t do solid color finishes back then.
Some time later, Seymour was visiting Wayne’s shop and saw the original ’57 body and bought it to use for a test guitar he was building. Seymour bought a ’57 maple neck from Kubicki for $85 and he bolted it onto the ’57 body. He wound some ‘60s replica pickups and used the guitar as a test bed. Eventually, he sold the Frankenstein guitar to a guy named Phil Taylor who in turn sold it to David Gilmour for $600. The neck plate said #0001; but like Richard Green’s, Seymour believed it to be non-original. Keep in mind, this was long before the vintage guitar craze had started; and was 15 years before the first Antiquity pickup was ever sold.
So there ya have it. A Seymour Duncan User Group Exclusive! :cool3: Unfortunately, Richard Green’s guitar was stolen in the ‘80s and is out there somewhere. If anyone has an idea of where it is, let Seymour or me know and we’ll get it back to Richard.
