I last played a '62 Strat at my end of school dance in 1975 (go ahead, work out how old I am). My art teacher Ken White (Nova Express) had a Sonic Blue one and he loaned it to us for the gig. We played "All right now" and I did my best Paul Kossoff and the moments I had playing that Strat burned into my memory forever. I can still remember exactly how the strings felt touching the fingerboard with that unbelievable action and how the solo's just seemed to come from nowhere.

All this flooded back when I opened this recent '62 and got a blast of musty smell from the instantly recognisable '60's Australian-made Stampford Strat case - the one that looks like it's for a Tenor Sax.

I plugged it into a Dave Ulbrick Combo 30 with all knobs at 5 and the sound and the feel are to die for. A lot of guitar players have had this moment with one instrument or another so you know what I mean. As much as I love the Fender Custom Shop guitars there truly is no comparison, but then there's no comparison in price either so here's a really good example of you get what you pay for.

The Sherwood Green paint is a properly done Nitro refin or this would be a lot more than it's listed as. I don't expect someone to ante up this sort of cash on the basis of what's on a website so I'm just going to say it's in excellent condition and if you're interested from there, shoot me an email and I can go into detail. Pre-L series Fenders are expensive (for good reason) and will continue to be so making them extremely wise investments.