Fender Case 'Furniture' circa 1973

57Deluxe

Fender provided the bare minimum of 'stuff' when you bought a new guitar in early 70s, a leather Fender strap  and a lead (non curly), 2x hex wrenches no plectrum! - oh and a little booklet of minimal use - EXCEPT for the sales-y bit at the back showing a range of add-ons like Amps!

For years I would read through all their amps and ponder what the difference could be and if I had to pick one - which would it be?? You just never saw them in the shops in that era.

Now you too can go on that journey as I have put the booklet in a PDF file...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14096671/Old%20Fender.pdf

AxeWieldingBastard

Nice one!

SNAKEBITE

Nicely done sir.

Neil

Love that old stuff, thanks for posting. 

ICBM

It's interesting that while in the US all the 70s Fender amps are common, roughly in inverse proportion to the cost of the model, in the UK the Twin is easily the most numerous - all the models were very expensive compared to British and even European amps of similar power and size, so they didn't sell well - except the Twin which was the pro's first choice and so cost-immune to a large extent. If you wanted a Fender and could afford it at all, that was what you got.

I also like the extra packet of two tremolo springs you got with a Strat, with fitting instructions printed on. You can often find these still in unopened condition, since by the early 70s most players were using 9s or 10s, which only need three. Notice in the booklet it says *Telecaster* guitars are fitted with three tremolo springs! That must have confused a few people...

p90fool

I have the Telecaster one from the same period, no mention of tremolo springs though!

richardhomer

ICBM;218544" said:

Notice in the booklet it says *Telecaster* guitars are fitted with three tremolo springs! That must have confused a few people...

Though there were a small number of Telecaster Deluxe models with factory Strat trems made in the '70s, so they were slightly right....

Looking at these documents really brought back memories of getting my first Strat.... (Stares wistfully into middle distance....)

racefaceec90

disappointed there are no "best guitar poses" pictures to inspire you while you're playing  )

ICBM

richardhomer said:

Looking at these documents really brought back memories of getting my first Strat.... (Stares wistfully into middle distance....)

Sadly there is nothing wistful about my memories of my first Strat - it was a '79, cream finish which even though incredibly thick wasn't quite enough to obscure the 'threepenny bit' router chatter on the edge contouring inside the cutaways, weighed about two tons, had a horrible neck profile and sounded absolutely crap. It was actually far less well-made or good-sounding than my Aria RS 'Strat-like' copy. In short a typical late-70s Strat. It put me off Fender entirely for a few years - I thought Gibson were just inherently better guitars - until eventually I came across a '68 Tele.