1956 Fender Stratocaster Burst 

Cosmetic Condition: Guitar is in very good condition.  There are a collection of dings and scratching on the guitar that can be seen in our listing photos.  The pick guard has chipped on the lower horn where the mounting screw is located and there is a small crack on the neck pickup adjustment screw.  Back of guitar has a bit of buckle rash where the finish has worn off.  The original case is missing a latch and one of the hinges is starting to pull apart from the case. With a few minor repairs the case could be fully functional, but we decided to leave the case as it is for originality.  

Case: Original Hardshell Case w/ additional ProRock hardshell case to preserve the original one.

Weight: 7.4 lbs 

****Due to photo upload limits, we can't include every photo of the internals of this guitar that we took or all of our blacklight photos. They can be provided upon request, just send us a message! *****

VINTAGE VERIFIED BY ISH GUITARS

Make: Fender

Model: Stratocaster

Year: 1956

Serial: 11869 

Body: Alder

Pickup Impedance: (Neck 5.97K) (Middle 6.23K) (Bridge 6.40K)

Nut Width: 1 21/32"

12th Fret Width: 2 1/64"

Depth at Nut:   61/64"

Depth at 12th: 31/32"

Fretboard Radius: 7.25"

Truss Rod Action: Single

Truss Rod Functioning:  Yes

Scale Length: 25.5"

Fret Size/Shape: short, narrow 

Describe Neck Profile: Soft v

Pot Markings: 304605

Switch Markings: CRL1452 

Jack: Switchcraft

Playability: The guitar plays extremely well and remarkably buzz free even with moderate to heavy fret and board wear. The action is 4/64” across the 12th fret with .009” relief on the neck strung with 9-42 D’Addario XL strings. The neck angle is spot on, built correctly with no shims installed or needed. The tuners move well and hold the tune well.  The truss rod moves easily without hesitation.  The guitar had no issue intonating perfectly with our Peterson strobe tuner at the 12th fret. The neck feels great and worn in for easy playing. The pickups sound fantastic with even sound across the 3 pickup positions. 

Authentication: Gorgeous pre-CBS 1956 Stratocaster! The neck, body, backplate and potentiometers all date to 1956 exactly. On the neck the handwritten date is directly below the truss rod access and reads XA-6-56 (June, 1956).  The body shows the date written by hand in the tremolo cavity also 6-56 (June, 1956).   The backplate contains the serial number which reads 11869  (Fullerton 1956).  Finally the pots are Stackpole pots, reading 304605 (5th week of 1956) and although only one pot code is fully visible I do not see any solder separation between the pots or components with the exception of the solder joint between the output jack and master volume which appeared to be resoldered at some point (which is why we made the careful determination to separate them again and remove the pickguard for closer viewing). 

Additionally, we do see the “nail holes” on the back of the neck, and between the tuners, as well as a few on the body under the pickguard showing no refinish work. Era correct 3 way switch with proper manufacturing codes CRL1452, proper neck and body construction including the thinner carved edge, 1pc maple neck with skunk stripe and cable route in the cavity.  The bridge, screws, tremolo, tone caps, pickguard (single ply 0.060” thickness), and unfilled body nail holes also help to prove originality. The plastic material all appears to be the original “bakelite” which was used on stratocasters between 1954-1956. There is one pickguard screw that does not match.  It is supposedly a 50’s Fender screw, however it is not original to the guitar (see pic) yet looks almost identical.

The case is all original and amazingly has the original Fender foil logo and Kyolon foam cushion sticker.  

Modifications/Repairs: When we received the guitar we found that the pickups were very quiet and did not give a reading of impedance.  We separated them from the guitar and soon learned that the pickups were problematic and had to be rewound.  After careful consideration we reached out to master pickup builder and repairman Curtis Novak for his advice.  He suggested a rewind with original formvar wire (same wire used in this exact strat just new old stock).  He correctly wound these to the specs required and they truly sound amazing, the best strat pickups we have ever heard.  No other part of this pickup was changed, we even reused the original hookup wire.  We preserved the original (cut off) winding wire for the next owner to have included with the receipt from Curtis to show the work performed. 

The nut was cut a bit low and resulted in buzzy playing on the open strings.  To remedy this we did build up the nut a little bit using bone dust and cyanoacrylate glue (a very durable and long lasting repair that is often permanent).  We did this instead of replacing the factory original nut to preserve originality. 

The body cavity had a lot of solder run off beads rattling around, to keep it from interrupting the connection we removed them and put them in a bag for the next owner to keep.

Lastly, we decided it would be best from a functionality standpoint to replace the original pickup height rubber tubes with springs so that the pickup height could be easily adjusted up and down.  The original adjustment tubes were flat and had no spring left, we have all 6 of them in a small baggy for the next owner. 

Other than these small modifications we see absolutely no other repairs or changes from the original guitar. Under blacklighting we can confirm this.