FENDER ELECTRIC INSTRUMENT COMPANY, FULLERTON, 1954

Production of the Fender Stratocaster was sporadic in the months of May, June and July of 1954. It is believed that the first true production run did not begin until October of that year. The neck date of 5-54 and the pot code, placing manufacture in the 41st week of 1953, would suggest that this guitar was one of the earliest Stratocaster bodies and necks to be completed by the Fender shop in 1954, though, the serial number applied to the neck plate rather than the tremolo cover, might lead us to believe it was dispatched much later that year.
Acquired in 1978 from a guitar shop on Denmark Street, London's Tin Pan Alley, David Gilmour has preserved this early Stratocaster for occasional studio use.