the Strat-o-sphere is basically a guitar breaker. He buys leftovers, used, and overstock (probably in bulk and probably cheap) and breaks them down and sells the parts. He is neither cheap nor is there much ethics involved because anything rare is treated the same way (like the Candy Red japan only Jaguar HH that he has broken down for sale for like $800 for the pieces or the '65 mustang he broke down a month back). It was probably a really nice jagstang for him to have broken it down. He also occasionally breaks down original 1960's guitars as well.
I bought a 1973 capri orange compstang reissue body from him when I put a crack in my 1969 reissue mustang's body, but before I could swap everything over I accidently damaged the neck as well and basically gave the guitar away to a buddy who was building a custom with his own body design to use for hardware. Now I want a 1965 reissue to strip and put all the stuff in the 1973 body, just cause I really like the way it looks (so if anybody out there has a cheap 65 reissue they want to unload, drop me a line).
I did sit down and crunch the numbers one day and I did realize that it is cheaper to buy a bare painted body from him than it is to have a guitar repainted in most instances (that CAR Jag HH being a big exception). The only down side is that you have to take factory colors and if your guitar only came in one or two colors...well there you go. He does seem to get a lot of those japanese compstang bodies however and if, for example, you had a boring ol dauphine blue 65 re-re and wanted to rock a compstang paint (so you can be like teh Kurtz) it isn't that bad of a deal.
BTW, tyler, one of the things I am finding out about building a hot rod jagstang is that it is a lot harder than it looks. More expensive too. I don't mind the cost because I am building a one off guitar and going full tilt with custom colors, electronics, etc, but for someone to just to slap together a jagstang is not cheap or easy. As someone who lived during the era that spawned this guitar and lusted after one when it was new the first time around this is a labor of lust rather than sensibilities, but truth be told I like my japanese Jaguar HH better than a JS for most situations.
