David Crosby Stratocaster from 1974 Wembley Show

danishbacon

In this fairly rare video of CSNY live at Wembley, David Crosby plays what is presumably the 1954 strat he mentions in this interview.

This is the only photograph I could dig up where he is playing the guitar in question. There are later photos of him with a natural finish Strat though they may not be the same guitar as the later one appears to have a white pickguard.

Anybody know anything about the guitar in question? 

bbill335

I'm more into Stills' firebird!

Basher

From the film below, it looks like it is the same guitar. It seems to have the same distinctive join in the wood at the same height as the top of the pickguard. Tuners look similar too.

thebreeze

I don't think he's referring to his '54 in that interview, I think he's saying that that's the kind of things collectors say but he has a different approach.  I'm not convinced that's a '54 in the vid or pic.  I think all '54's had sunburst bodies.  At 40 sec in the vid you get a good look at the tuners which don't look like the original '54 vintage type to me.  The string tree in the pic isn't the round one either that '54's have.

jimmyguitar

The guitar in the second pic has a 1965 decal and Fender reintroduced maple necks in 65 so it should be a 65 but the pickguard is a single ply 8 hole which would be on a 50's strat so maybe it's a stripped 50's strat with a replacement 65 neck?

mudslide73

Neil looks incredibly cool in the top photo. 

danishbacon

Bump for more info

fretfinder

mudslide73 said:

Neil looks incredibly cool in the top photo. 

Neil ALWAYS looks incredibly cool! 

Octafish

jimmyguitar said:

The guitar in the second pic has a 1965 decal and Fender reintroduced maple necks in 65 so it should be a 65 but the pickguard is a single ply 8 hole which would be on a 50's strat so maybe it's a stripped 50's strat with a replacement 65 neck?

It has the 65 logo, but appears to have wider speced 12th fret markers which were changed in 63 so hard to be certain about the origins of the neck, could be a replacement or refinished with the wrong logo.

Octafish

danishbacon said:

In this fairly rare video of CSNY live at Wembley, David Crosby plays what is presumably the 1954 strat he mentions in this interview.

This is the only photograph I could dig up where he is playing the guitar in question. There are later photos of him with a natural finish Strat though they may not be the same guitar as the later one appears to have a white pickguard.

Anybody know anything about the guitar in question? 

Could simply be the pickguard was changed to a black one (or even tortousishell?) in the earlier pic, it still has white pickup covers. Also looks like Tele style pots fitted in the top pic? As I mentioned above, neck on guitar in lower pic has 65> logo, but <63 12th fret markers.

richardhomer

Octafish said:

jimmyguitar said:

The guitar in the second pic has a 1965 decal and Fender reintroduced maple necks in 65 so it should be a 65 but the pickguard is a single ply 8 hole which would be on a 50's strat so maybe it's a stripped 50's strat with a replacement 65 neck?

It has the 65 logo, but appears to have wider speced 12th fret markers which were changed in 63 so hard to be certain about the origins of the neck, could be a replacement or refinished with the wrong logo.

It also has a walnut fillet in front of the nut - which suggests it’s a one-piece neck. Maple necks (until around ‘68 IIRC - by which point they had big headstocks) had maple veneer boards glued on to the neck like rosewood boards were at that time.

So likelihood is it’s a refinished 50s neck with the wrong logo added....

Octafish

richardhomer said:

Octafish said:

jimmyguitar said:

The guitar in the second pic has a 1965 decal and Fender reintroduced maple necks in 65 so it should be a 65 but the pickguard is a single ply 8 hole which would be on a 50's strat so maybe it's a stripped 50's strat with a replacement 65 neck?

It has the 65 logo, but appears to have wider speced 12th fret markers which were changed in 63 so hard to be certain about the origins of the neck, could be a replacement or refinished with the wrong logo.

It also has a walnut fillet in front of the nut - which suggests it’s a one-piece neck. Maple necks (until around ‘68 IIRC - by which point they had big headstocks) had maple veneer boards glued on to the neck like rosewood boards were at that time.

So likelihood is it’s a refinished 50s neck with the wrong logo added....

Ha, ha good catch, that's pretty definitive then. Forgot about the lack of plug despite having my Japanese 68 Strat maple veneer board sitting in front of me!