Fender Stratocaster 1970s

About the Fender Stratocaster 1970s

Fender built these Strats in Fullerton, California through the 1970s: a large headstock with two string trees, a bullet truss rod nut adjusted at the headstock, F-stamped tuners, a three-bolt neck plate with Micro-Tilt angle adjustment, and die-cast tremolo saddles. The maple neck has a maple or rosewood board, a 25.5 inch scale, a 7.25 inch radius and 21 frets; measured nuts run 1.59 to 1.64 inch and necks 0.83 to 0.87 inch deep at the first fret. Controls are one volume and two tones on a three-way switch. Bodies are alder or ash; natural and blond ones are ash.

The three-bolt neck arrived around 1971 and 1972. Pickups have staggered pole pieces up to 1974 and flat ones after; white plastic parts end with 1975 and black ones follow in 1976. Until about 1976 the serial is a six-digit number on the neck plate; 1977 serials start S7. Serial, neck stamp, pots and pickups often disagree, so date one from all of them: pot codes end in year and week (1377249 is week 49 of 1972), pickups are date-stamped, and the heel stamp often fades. Weighed 1972 to 1974 guitars mostly come in at 7.1 to 7.8 lb (3.2 to 3.5 kg), 1975 to 1977 ones at 7.7 to 10 lb (3.5 to 4.5 kg).

The original case is black tolex with an orange lining; the back plate is often missing. Expect refrets, swapped tuners with extra screw holes, a five-way switch, a replaced volume pot, new pickups, routing for a humbucker or Floyd Rose, and refinishes.

In one paragraph

The page's figures as one paragraph, assembled for quoting; not written by hand.

Listings of the Fender Stratocaster 1970s we watched from listing to sale typically went in 65 days (9 watched), a slow; it sells for a median of €2,300 over the last 90 days across 14 recorded sales, with most examples landing between €1,750 and €3,550. The sale median is down 47% on the €4,367 of the 90 days before. There are 134 listings live right now across Reverb, eBay United States, eBay Germany, from €862 asking, a median ask 53% over the sale median. Figures computed 18 October 2026 by Doirado from cross-platform listing data.