Guitar Highlights: 1966 Fiesta Red Stratocaster with a Bound Fretboard
Recently, we received this gorgeous 1966 Fender Stratocaster in Fiesta Red from its original owner. He bought it new in 1967, and kept the guitar all these years! It is an incredible custom color find in its own right, but this guitar takes its rarity one step further. It features a bound fretboard, a rare appointment seen on very few Stratocasters. We have three in-store currently but have only seen a few others, with all of these examples dating to 1966. Upon receiving this Fiesta Red example, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to examine our other examples for similarities and differences. What we found is incredible!
Bound-fretboard Stratocasters are exceedingly rare, and there are a few reasons for this. The Fender catalog only advertised bound Strat fretboards for one year, in the 66-67 Catalog, noting that the model “featured the advanced neck design with binding.” By the next year, this feature is no longer mentioned in the Stratocaster’s advertisement. This was also a period of reduced Stratocaster sales 1967 being the second lowest year of production for the model. Due to this timing and CBS-era appointments quickly becoming Fender’s norm, very few Stratocaster necks received binding.
All three bound fretboard Strats we currently have are in custom colors and were completed by early 1966. Other than this one in Fiesta Red, we have an Olympic White and Candy Apple Red example. The Fiesta Red neck dates to Feb of 66, while the Oly White and CAR examples date to March. The Fiesta Red and Oly White examples feature early 1966 pots (same week), while the Candy Apple Red Stratocaster features late 65 pots. Examining each of these guitars was fascinating, although our most exciting discovery happened when we looked at the neck pockets.
The Candy Apple Red neck pocket has the typical appearance, however, “Show” is written in the pocket of the Olympic White example. This leads us to believe that the Oly White example may have been displayed at NAMM or another trade show to advertise the new Strat appointment. We have seen guitars with notes similar to this, either in the neck pocket, on the back of the headstock, or under the guard, and typically each was used in some sort of Fender advertisement. The Fiesta Red example also has “Show” written in the neck pocket, so we drew the same conclusion, that this guitar must have been displayed. The 1966 NAMM Show was held in Chicago from July 10-14, so it is entirely possible that these guitars were completed early that year in preparation for the summer show and other advertising.
Furthermore, this wasn’t all we found in the Fiesta Red pocket. Next to “Show” was a secondary piece of writing, “Picture”. This brought us back to the 66-67 Catalog mentioned earlier, where the bound fretboard appointment was first advertised. In this photo, you can see a Fiesta Red Stratocaster with fretboard binding lying horizontally on a wicker table. Due to the angle of the picture, we cannot be 100% sure that this is the same guitar. Although, we can’t think of another reason “Picture” would have been notated in this neck pocket. Knowing how few of these bound fretboard examples were made, we think this 1966 Fiesta Red Stratocaster could legitimately be the 66-67 catalog guitar.
This trio is available now, shop the listings here! As always, feel free to call us anytime to discuss any of these rare instruments.
