mholubec said: Just a little background on the guitar. I picked it up from a buddy of mine from high school. I had ran into him recently and of course started talking music. I asked him if he still had that old Fender (The 71 mustang) from high school (at that time the guitar had the humbuckers in it). He said that he had taken it apart in to paint it back in 1987, never put it back together and it was setting in a box in his attic. Then he surprised me and said if I wanted to stop by his place I could just have it.
So I'm sure ALL the parts are at least 20 + years old. Now what may have been done to it before then I don't know.
What kind of confuses me, is at least as far back as 1985 - 1988 after market parts weren't that easy to get. You had to special order everything. And to through money into a then CHEAP guitar wouldn't make much sense. I guess the mystery of this guitar makes it that much cooler for me.
VERY lucky score
Also interesting is that you mention that you remember the Mustang from the mid-80's. This seems to me to be before the revival and the reputation of the guitar took hold.
But the thing is, maybe the OG owner was a modding trailblazer, as in, he saw a good, cheap guitar with lots of modding potential and thought it was worth spending the money on to make it something more suitable to his/her needs.
Kinda like my Squier 51. I bough one a couple of months ago without even knowing it was a Squier (due to the heavy mods), then when I found out what it was, I was VERY pleased. I just bought it because I loved the sound of the humbucker, and I'm not even a fan of humbuckers generally.
Point it, yeah, mystery maked the guitar so much cooler, and gives it so much character.
