*  1965 - Given to me on my 15th Birthday in 1965 by my father



*   The original color was sunburst



*   1965 - the guitar received some paint damage by putting it to close to a powerful    bright stage light and melted the finish in a 4 inch square area



*   1967 - The damaged finish was such an eyesore that I hand sanded the entire guitar down to the bare wood



*   1968 - the middle pickup was changed to a Gibson Humbucker which required the wood under the pick guard to be routed out to make room for the larger pickup, also the 3 position switch was replaced with 3 3-way mini toggle switches to turn on each one or all 3 pickups at the same time. You could also reverse the polarity of the pickups which created unique sounds

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*   1968 - the original Strat Rosewood neck was replaced with a 1968 Fender Telecaster Thinline Maple neck. The original Strat neck was put on the Tele Thinline and loaned to a friend who was drafted to Viet Nam in 1969 and couldn't find me so he got rid of the guitar and the original neck was never seen again. The telecaster neck stayed on the guitar until the recent refurbish was completed in June of 2012



*   1973 - From all the full time 6-nights a week playing, the frets wore down making impossible to tune. They were made on nickel and the bending of the strings created grooves in the frets. Michael Fayour who had a guitar repair shop with Danny Gatton did the refret job and also refinished the neck. He kept the worn out look at gave it an aged yellowish tint which looked really cool. He also recommended painting the guitar because the natural open grain wood finish was not good for the wood.



*   1973 - I had a real scare when we played in Quanitco, Va Marine headquarters Officer's Club. We lived about 100 miles North of the gig but when we packed up our equipment after the gig we used the loading dock thru the kitchen. When we got home and unpacked at about 4:00 AM my guitar wasn't in the truck. I panicked and called the Club and they found it and held it for me to pick up the next day. Close one....



*   1975 - Glen Campbell came in to hear us play at the Holiday Inn in Gaithersberg, Md. He sat in with our band which was a 3 piece at the time and I only had the one guitar with me so he played it for about an hour. He told me he really liked because the natural finish was rather unique and he liked the Tele neck.

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*   1979 - The guitar finally received it's new paint job. Olympic white which was a Fender color. Thorouhbred Music in Tampa, Florida did all the work, they also did another neck refretting job since I was still playing full time and wore them down again. This time I went with wider Gibson Les Paul style frets.  All the hardware on the guitar was replaced with gold plated tuning keys, bridge, back neck plate and pick guard screws. I also changed the original pick guard with different colored ones. It came with a white one, I used Black, and most of the time I used the Tortise Shell which was a brownish color with speckled yellow spots throughout. That one stayed with the guitar until the 2012 refurbish took place. 



*  1984 - Another close call came when we were leaving St Thomas, US Virgin Islands after a 9 month long gig at "The Frenchmans Reef Resort" We had a week off and then were going to start playing at Ceasers Palace in Atlantic City. We we at the airport in St Thomas boarding our flight when the airlines "Air Florida" went out of buisness. The employees quit then and there and all of our band equipment was sitting on the runway next to the plane but they would not load it. We could have flown home but would not know what would be of our equipment so half of us stayed and made other arrangements to get our equipment home. We then flew home the next day on another airlines and got of equipment in Miami at the Customs administration a few days later..



*   2011  -  The guitar remained unchanged from 1984 until 2011 when I decieded to do a complete makeover of everything. The body was painted White Pearl with a light gold metallic tint. It took 6 months to have this done and the painter "Simms Custom Guitar Shop" in Memphis,Tenn did not pack the body well enough and Fed Ex dropped it, denting the wood and cracking the paint on the upper horn where to guitar strap connects. Patrick Simms did not follow up with Fed Ex and did nothing for me as far as repairing the damage so I guess I am stuck with what it is. The paint work in fantastic and I will do some sort of paint repair in the near future if he ever sends me a little touch up paint.

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here is a list of the current upgrades



*   A new Warmoth Neck made by Warmoth Guitars a Fender Liscensed to original specs. It has Gold colored Stainless Steel frets that will not wear out.



*   I have 2 or 3 different pickup configurations that I can plug and play into the body. The set you see here is made by Lindy Fralin with a Warmoth pickguard and back plate cover.



*   I also have the original 1st and 3rd 65-Strat pickups with a Seymor Duncan "Duckbucker" pickup for the middle one.



*   Another set up is a set of Fender Custom Shop 1969 pickups which I haven't tried as of yet.



*   All hardware is new and gold plated. The bridge, tuners, knobs, neck plate and front jack plate.



*   I just had a Fender "G and G" case custom made in white tolex with purple poodle plush velvet inside and gold plated latches. (See pics above)



OUT OF ALL MY GUITARS, THIS 65 STRAT WILL NEVER BE SOLD IN MY LIFETIME, IT IS ALSO THE MOST VALUABLE OF THEM ALL BUT SINCE IT IS NOT ALL ORIGINAL IT WILL NOT FETCH $25,000.00 IF I WERE TO SELL IT like other 65's.  IT HAS BEEN WITH ME AT ALL MY GIGS AND HAS TRAVELED MANY FORIGN COUNTRIES THAT I HAVE PLAYED IN SUCH AS:

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SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA

LUXEMBOURG

FRANCE

GERMANY

HOLLAND

BELGIUM

ST THOMAS, US VIRGIN ISLANDS

US



​I STILL HAVE THE USA MADE 1968 FENDER TELECASTER THINLINE NECK WHICH IS VALUABLE ALL BY ITSELF BUT I PLAN ON MATCHING IT UP WITH A VERY SPECIAL TELECASTER BODY. I HAVEN'T FOUND ONE YET BUT AM ALWAYS LOOKING... IT IS DUE FOR ANOTHER (ITS 3RD) REFRET JOB































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Here below are pic's of the guitar in the different stages....