50th Anniversary Deluxe Stratocaster

[dan P]

...Had mine four years now and always find it hard to take her out and play, since I do have others for that reason, even though I like all the pup positions, and she really shines with the s-1 engaged. The SCN's are underated in book, maybe because of all the confusion over noiseless pups and the possibility of changing them for something else, and still being able to use the switching. If you have read the story of the making of these pups, you would have thought they were the Lord's sending...After a year and most likely still, these guitars were being parted out by a few ebay sites and a guy would wonder just how many are still in one piece as well as how many they produced....any thoughts?

[ZMAN]

He Dan: As you know I have had mine since 2006. I was lucky to find one new in an unopened box at my local guitar shop. He had two of them. The price up here in Canada was pretty prohibitive at the time, but I had a trade and wanted one badly. I hardly play it and it is a closet queen. I love the guitar and how it feels. Hell it still has the original strings on it. The SCNs with the S-1 switch make it a very versatile guitar and the neck is to die for.
Funny though I have a Deluxe Player Strat MIM 3 color with maple. It has a similar switch built into the pickguard and with the Vintage noiseless it can achieve a lot of the same tone as the 50th Anni. Of course the DP has a 12 inch radius and is a great guitar in it's own right.
I will keep mine as is and it will be in prisitine condition 10 years from now.
I wonder what it will be worth at 14 or15 years of age.

[dan P]

Morning Zman, That pretty much sums it up, with all of them that were parted out you would think they would have some pretty good value down the road, still dont know how many were made, maybe I will bug fender to see what their answer is... I can say I have seen alot of so called 50th's on the bay...that were not..

[ZMAN]

I think a lot of people feel that because the guitar is a 2004 American Strat that it is an Anniversary edition. I just looked at the Fender Frontline from 2004 and it shows the guitar, and it says it comes with a brown tolex case. Mine came with a tweed case as did most of them. I almost forgot about the locking tuners I have all the case candy in the original unopened plastic bag. I personally think it would be silly to part out the guitar. When you could buy a regular Deluxe for a lot less with the same parts. The whole reason for an Anniversary edition is to have a guitar in a specific form.
Maybe we fell for all the hype in paying more for it but I didn't buy it as a player!

[dan P]

Im sure you have seen this before , the custom shop, the deluxe, the standard, and the mexican..the gold body one. The other three had two-tone tobacco coat, the standard had CS 54's and an ash body, silver hardware. the deluxe had gold hardware, scn's and the S-1 switching..all 4 flavors had the body neck heel cut, feels good, and forgot that, all came with the 50th patch on the picguard and came with the tweed 50th anni. case, other than the mim... No 50 th anni strats had rosewood necks . What I see on the bay are 2004 strats sold as actual 50th when their not....