The Steel Guitar Forum

One of my friends has a 3-neck Fender Stringmaster. The serial number is 004, and he believes it is a 1953. I've never seen the guitar but the picture looks great. He has asked me for a ballpark selling price and I have no idea.

Does anyone know what these vintage guitars are selling for these days?

My opinion, without more photos and details:

$1,400 - $1,700

If the case is original it puts it squarely into at least mid-1960's territory... the early '60's cases were brown tolex, the earlier '50's ones were luggage tweed.

A 1953 Stringmaster would be a rare bird indeed... the earliest I've seen is the '54, and it has chrome-covered pickups, slide switches for each neck, and a super long 26" scale. The next series lost the long scale in favor of two different scales, 22.5 and 24", and had push buttons for selecting necks. The last series, of which this is one, had the Telecaster-style toggle for neck selection, with the bat switch for choosing all three at once.

This guitar has a 24" scale... but it looks like the finish is nitro instead of poly, so I'd put it at mid'60's. The chrome looks to be in good shape... without seeing the legs, etc it's hard to put an exact quote on it, but I paid around $1500 for a short-scale late fifties model with pitted chrome. I'd say this one would be worth about the same if it has decent legs.

Hi Gene

Stephen is steering you right pretty much all the way down the line and C. E. has given you a realistic price range -- of course condition and the right buyer are huge factors.

The reason your friend thinks it's a 1954 is probably that he either used the online guitar dater or called Fender. Both the dater and many of the Fender help line people aren't aware that serial numbers on the Stringmaster or Deluxe 6/8 aren't the same as the "guitar" serial numbers. They seem to be more of a model based production number and do not use the same serial number pattern as all the other lines from Fender.

If your friend reads the tuner pan, I'll bet it has a Patent number. Until 1962 it would have said patent pending.

Happy Trails
Dale

Thanks guys for the input to my question. My friend is a musician, but not a steel player, and I have forwarded your comments to him.

If he decides to sell this guitar instead of keeping it in his collection, I will suggest that he make it available on the Forum.

You can check the owner, Harvey Derrick, on Google.

If you take off the tuning peg dish on the back neck it should tell you what year the guitar was made,providing it's preCBS,which it probably is.My guess is early 60s.

I relayed that info to my friend and he has confirmed that it is indeed a 60's model.

Thanks again guys for the info.