NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The first production model Fender Stratocaster guitar has been sold for $250,000.
George Gruhn of Nashville sold the 1954 guitar on consignment for owner and guitar historian Richard Smith. Gruhn said Thursday that the guitar was shipped and the purchase finalized this week.
Gruhn, who owns a Nashville guitar shop, says the buyer wanted to remain anonymous, but he said the private collector lives in the United States and is not a professional musician. Gruhn also says he encouraged the buyer to contact the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix about displaying it.
“I think it would be great if periodically he would loan it out,” Gruhn said. “I would hate to think that it would spend the next 40 or 50 years completely out of sight and not seen or heard.”
The sunburst-finish Strat bears the serial number 0100. Although some Strats have lower numbers that begin with 0001, Gruhn says they actually were manufactured later in that first year of production.
The Fender Stratocaster, first produced in 1954, has been described as a guitar that changed the world. Buddy Holly played one. So did Jimi Hendrix, a decade later. Bob Dylan chose a Stratocaster for his revolutionary electric set, when he fired a defiant shot at tradition during the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.