1953 Fender Stringmaster

[Roger Rajotte]

Need help from forum members to establish a fair price on this steel. In the book “Fender, The Inside Story” by Forrest White, it looks like this complete functioning eight string single steel with 26” scale was a prototype . Fender 22 1/2 scale started production in late 1952 with double 8, triple 8 & quad 8. Then in mid 1955 Leo started producing 24 1/2” scale Stringmasters.
This one is stamped with a completion date of August 4th, 1953 and made by Cruz whom I’m told was one Fenders longtime guitar builder employees.

Did Fender ever produce any double, triple, or Quad 8’s with 26” scale?

[Jim Rossen]

Fender did produce 26 inch scale multi neck eight string steel guitars. I don't know that I've ever seen a single neck 26 inch scale Fender console steel. Makes me wonder if your guitar was made by disassembling a multi neck guitar.

Jim

[Ken Pippus]

The diamond plates, which covered the bolts that held the multiple necks together, makes that pretty much a certainty.

[Doug Beaumier]

Yeah, it’s an “orphan” Stringmaster neck, originally part of a multi-neck Stringmaster. Like Ken said, the diamond plates are the dead giveaway. The case appears to be non-original, after market.

[Erv Niehaus]

All the early Stringmasters were 26" scale.
It didn't matter if they were double, triple or 4 neck.
There were NO single neck Stringmasters.
Erv

[Pete McAvity]

As stated repeatedly above. It's an orphan. Got a pic of the front? that's probably the side that was sandwiched to another neck & will likely have a different finish from the rest of the guitar.

[Mike Harris]

Finish on the insides of my T-8 is not different from the outside. But there are holes for the rods and for the pickup wires. I supposed you could put two more diamonds on to cover the rod holes on the one we're discussing.

Do we know that this one is sporting the original finish?

[Cartwright Thompson]

Yeah, with the slider switch, it was probably a triple or quad and they added the pots, it looks like the tuner pan was changed to the later style and the original with lollipops is in the case.

[Doug Beaumier]

Good eye, Cartwright. I didn’t notice that early style tuner pan in the case.

Also, the output jack plate is aftermarket, and the control knobs are not original to the guitar.

[Bill Sinclair]

Still, pretty nice guitar for an orphan stringmaster neck. Interestng, even if non-original case. Should be worth $350 to $450 - about the value of the parts. Got a picture of the front?

[Dave Mudgett]

Of course, it's an orphan neck. It may seem odd, but actually, these are pretty hard to come by and IMO worth more than you might think. A LOT of people seem to want single 8 'Stringmasters' these days, and the 26" scale is very popular. I've seen a number of these trade way higher than $350-400. I think it has to do with the relative rarity of the 26" scale and the desirability of the S8 configuration.

On the other hand, the funky case, and what appears to be a natural refinish and the lack of legs may curb interest some. But I think these are a hard guitar to quantify the value, not because of their 'vintage cachet', but because of their utility.

As always, the market dictates the 'value'. I would put a somewhat optimistic number on it and be prepared to come down if there's no action.

[Aside: My experience is that the 'value per neck' goes down and down as the number of necks goes up and up. I also think this is often the motivation for people taking apart multi-neck Stringmasters in the first place. I definitely took a hit on my Quad by selling it intact. I'm sure I would have done much better at least separating it into two D8s. But I honestly hate destroying a piece of history.]

And BTW, it was me that moved this to Steel Without Pedals. If and when you decide you are ready to sell the guitar, then is the time to start a new thread to that effect in For Sale: Steel Guitars. If you want to reference this discussion, you can link to it from that thread.

[Nic Neufeld]

I agree that this is not going to be a collector's item, exactly, but it could hold a decent value to the right person as a "player". It looks nice, decent condition albeit non-original obviously, and the long scale S8 is a pretty nice config for a lot of people who don't want to haul a big console around. I feel like modern players tend to standardize on one tuning more often than was the case in the 40s and 50s (probably some good reasoning behind that trend).

One thing that I'd want to know, if I was a prospective buyer, is the wiring details. Specifically because the wiring on both MkI and MkII stringmasters is not very conventional compared to other dual pickup guitars. This is a MkI Stringmaster which originally would not have had a blend pot that the MkII Stringmasters had, and the neck pickup was blended in (in series!) via the tone knob which ALSO used a capacitor to bleed off highs, so it was complex, atypical wiring. Since we've got two pickups and an apparent volume and tone knob, with a slider switch (that originally would just be on/off in a multineck setup), unscrewing the control plate and photographing the wiring might help someone sort out exactly what they've set this up to do. There's a lot of approaches they could have taken, for sure. Of course, someone with a soldering iron could rewire to suit their preference, too.

[Bill Sinclair]

I think you'll find that the thickness of your guitar is approx. 2 1/4". I'm basing that on how much room there is above the large diamond. That thickness would have been used as either the front neck in a D8 or T8 or the #3 neck in a quad. I see from a picture in another thread that there is a plug on the front of the guitar where there used to be wiring to the front neck, meaning that this would have been the #3 neck of an early quad Stringmaster. A front neck or a single neck would not have that hole. As I stated earlier, it's still a pretty nice orphan Stringmaster and Dave Mudgett makes a good case for it possibly being worth more than the value of the parts that I stated earlier. It's definitely not a prototype though.