A 1980s Fender Stratocaster Elite Model

Details

A 1980s Fender Stratocaster Elite Model
in black finish, maple neck with skunk-stripe routing, twenty-one fret fingerboard with dot inlays, three Fender Elite-style pickups, three rotary controls with rubber grips, three button controls, active electronics, side mounted jack input, Freeflyte combination tailblock and cream pickguard; and a black rectangular hardshell case with black plush lining and Lee Dickson's handwritten tie-on label Fender Elite Black N.S.N.

The Fender Elite was launched in 1983. This guitar has a 1950s-style neck with a butterscotch finish.

Eric Clapton made no comments on this particular instrument but remarked that he had "messed around" with the other Elite in the sale - lot 89 and it is thought he has done the same with this one.
Fender Strat Elite/Black

Literature

FORTE, Dan The Interview - Eric Clapton, in Guitar Player, GPI Collectors Edition, Summer, 1986, p.22

Lot Essay

In an interview with Dan Forte for Guitar Player magazine, Clapton described his preferred setup for guitars "...all of them need to be about .1/8 inch in the action, and I like it to be constant all the way down...I like frets to be generally somewhere between a Strat and a Les Paul. Les Pauls are too thick and Fenders are sometimes too thin. The Fender Elite is very nice because it's a blend..."

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