Could this be the same catalogue THAT strat was ordered from

[Hank2k]

Just found this on ebay, wondered if this was possibly the catalogue that the Shadows ordered the strat from, obviously not the actual one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Origi ... 3519wt_698

[ecca]

And what a bargain !

[JimN]

Just found this on ebay, wondered if this was possibly the catalogue that the Shadows ordered the strat from, obviously not the actual one
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Origi ... 3519wt_698

Reprints of the appropriate Fender catalogue were supplied with each of the recent batch of anniversary Strats supplied by Oasis Music (in co-operation with The Shadows and each based on 34346). Such reprints can be ordered by anyone and are supplied by an American third party.

Contrary to what is popularly believed,the Fender catalogue or brochure consulted by the group in 1959 was not printed in colour. Fender didn't produce colour catalogues until the late 1960s. The imaging was all monochromatic, though some of their brochures used a single colour in addition to black (rather like some UK comics) and other musical instrument companies had a similar policy right up through the mid-sixties.

For what it's worth, I believe that it was the 1958 brochure which Hank, Bruce, Jet and Tony pored over, rather than the 1957 edition, not that there would have been much difference between the contents apart from the expansion of the amplifier range and the Musicmaster end of the guitar range. In late 1958, the only Fender guitars available were the Jazzmaster (which was top of the range), Stratocaster, Telecaster, Esquire and Precision Bass, plus the Musicmaster and Duosonic. Then there were the lap steel and the twin and triple neck steel models of course.

JN

PS: On studying the eBay pics, it's interesting that the 1957 Fender catalogue offers DeArmond pickups and Shure microphones. That had certainly stopped by the 1960s, though years later, Fender bought up the rights to the products of the defunct Rowe-DeArmond comapny.

[RayL]

Contrary to what is popularly believed,the Fender catalogue or brochure consulted by the group in 1959 was not printed in colour. Fender didn't produce colour catalogues until the late 1960s. The imaging was all monochromatic, though some of their brochures used a single colour in addition to black (rather like some UK comics) and other musical instrument companies had a similar policy right up through the mid-sixties.

The 1965-66 Fender catalogue is monochrome with red overprinted in various shades. No full guitar on the front - just close-ups of parts of a Jaguar - bridge, machine heads, switches, etc. Two pages were given over to steel and pedal-steel guitars, giving an idea of Fender's priorities at that time.

The Gibson catalogue of the same period has the inside pages in monochrome printed over pale blue or grey panels. They've pushed out the boat for the cover, though - against a crimson background, a woman in a scarlet dress is seated on a golden chair gazing at an ES-335TD-SV (tremolo, stereo and Vari-tone) in cherry red with gold-plated hardware. Are they trying to tell us something?

The 1965 Gretsch catalogue has, alas, no female interest on its cover, just a guitar - in this case, a double-cutaway Chet Atkins Country Gentleman in mahogany-grained finish. Full colour is maintained right up to Page 3, however, for 'The Ultimate Sound Of The Times' - a highly drool-worthy White Falcon with 'Super Project-O-Sonic electrification' and '24-karat (sic) gold-plated metal parts'. '54 Tone-color variations available at the flick of a switch! Made possible by four split Filter 'Tron heads . . two bass, two treble which you can custom-blend in nine different settings. Three-way bass and treble tone-color switches provide six tone settings for each head combination.' Oh, and there's also 'Gretsch T-zone Tempered-Treble (Patent #3,103,846) for perfect high-note intonation' (slanted frets).

At that time the Strat still had only a three-position switch and was rated 8th in the Fender catalogue, behind the Jaguar, 12-string guitar, Jazzmaster, Bass VI, 5-string bass, Jazz bass and Precision bass and just ahead of the Telecaster/Esquire and the Duo-Sonic Three-quarter-size guitar!

Ray

[Tone]

The catalogue supplied with the Oasis 50th Anniversary Strat is a reprint of the 1957-58 edition and, as Jim has said, the photographs are monochrome but there is an artistic pink (but not Flamingo Pink!) overlay to the text in places.

The fact that the catalogue covers two years suggests that it was produced biannually so, presumably, the one seen by the Shads would be either a 1958-59 or 1959-60 edition.

Cheers.

Tony