Skip to product information
1 of 14

1962 FENDER STRATOCASTER 3-TONE SUNBURST

Garrett Park Guitars

This guitar is in our Hall of Fame Collection and is no longer available for purchase.

For your consideration is this 1962 Slab Board Stratocaster

This one is player in almost every sense. Its body was oversprayed in shellac many years ago and had begun to flake off. Our finish luthier wet sanded it (until his fingers bled) and got it off. Underneath was this original sunburst, albeit shiny now from all the wet sanding. It seems the shellac actually protected the original finish. The pickup and electronics cavities were painted with shielding paint as was often the practice back in the day. The neck cavity also has been painted over and the previous owners social security number was handwritten there.

Original parts: Body (2/62 pencil date in tremolo cavity), neck (2/62 pencil date on the base), sunburst finish, pickguard (crack free), shielding plate, strap pins, bridge assembly, neck (oversprayed but worn off all but a bit of the back of the headstock), decal, strap pins, input jack, all plastic parts (p/u covers, knobs etc), string tree

Non Original parts: tuners, nut, frets (6105's-killer player), pickups (Fralin Blues Special's), potentiometer's and 5 ways switch, tremolo bar, white Fender Reissue case.

A Sensational player, total SRV vibe, light, loud, aggressive, fantastic slab fingerboard, clacky, mojo for days...

Footnotes from Rick:
"I bought this guitar from a player in the Washington DC area who used this guitar extensively since he bought it in the 1970s as a second hand piece. He toured extensively since 1974 and the guitar was used all over the East Coast and Southeast.
I did not get a lot of details on how and why all the work was done, but it was very common back in those days for guitars to be "improved" and this was the case with this piece. The guitar was covered in shellac and when I asked him about this, he could not remember why or how or even that it had been oversprayed, again he was a musician in the '70s :) and considered this guitar as a tool. I find this to be the case quite often with players from this era, these were the guitars they could afford, they were not happy with the new guitars of the day and they were not revered as collectors pieces.
I took this guitar to our finish specialist who first tried alcohol and finally had to use the wet sanding process to remove the finish. I can only assume that back in the day as wear and dings started to appear the move was made to overspray to preserve the original finish.
Also important is remember is that the wet sanding polished the nitro cellulose finish leaving it looking new, albeit with the dings etc...
As you can see the important dates are intact (Neck date and tremolo cavity date), the paint over the others is annoying but does not mar the fact that the body and neck are original '62 Fender parts." Rick Hogue

If you have a guitar similar to this and are interested in selling it or having it appraised, use the "Chat with us" button or fill out the form below!