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We have all read and heard about the way that 34346 was chosen and ordered from a Fender catalogue, but what we never knew is that the centre page of that catalogue was framed and is hanging on the wall in Bruce Welch's home

wow 285 of you have viewed my message above so far, and I have just been informed my information in not correct.............The framed picture on the wall is not from the original catalogue.......So there you are, sorry for wasting your time...........Merry Christmas

Even in the 1960s (at the time when these catalogues below were issued), Fender were not even using full colour for their front cover (unlike Gretsch or Gibson).

All the above catalogues only have monochrome illustrations for their inside pages which would indicate that the picture on Bruce's wall comes from a time much later when full colour catalogues became the norm.

Ray

If I recall correctly, Fender did issue a (USA-only) colour catalogue in the early 1960s, but reverted to monochrome (or rather, monochrome plus one colour, like the inner pages of the Dandy or the Beano) by 1967. Certainly, there is no colour photography in my USA-printed 1966/67 Fender catalogue (which is uploaded to the internet if anyone wants to see it).

Of course, even if every USA Fender catalogue had been printed in colour (or even "color") and 3D, we wouldn't have seen them in the UK, where we were targeted by the decidedly monochrome publications of Selmer and Jennings.

JimN wrote:If I recall correctly, Fender did issue a (USA-only) colour catalogue in the early 1960s, but reverted to monochrome (or rather, monochrome plus one colour, like the inner pages of the Dandy or the Beano) by 1967. Certainly, there is no colour photography in my USA-printed 1966/67 Fender catalogue (which is uploaded to the internet if anyone wants to see it).

Of course, even if every USA Fender catalogue had been printed in colour (or even "color") and 3D, we wouldn't have seen them in the UK, where we were targeted by the decidedly monochrome publications of Selmer and Jennings.

we might not see them but if you were a sixty`s pop super star you might maybe thats how he got it. peter

As the Fender illustrations were all monochrome in 1959, Hank would have had no idea what actual colour he was going to get. For the radio program It Was In Tune When I bought It, he describes the one they ordered as "the most expensive, with the birds-eye maple neck, gold hardware and a tremolo arm" but the colour obviously came as a surprise "When we opened the case, it looked fantastic. The body was a flamingo pink, not an unsubtle red. It looked great and sounded really good"

Is the order form (or a copy) in existence? Was 'Fiesta Red' the colour that they ordered? If you could specify neck, hardware finish and tremolo arm, surely colour would also be an option?
Ray

Remember that the guitar was brought back from the States by one of Cliff's mates (Dave?) who was given a handwritten description of what to buy. The note was reproduced in one of the books about Cliff, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment...

George

The handwritten note (written from the Birmingham Hippodrome) was reproduced in the back section of Steve Turner's Cliff biography. The "Dave" in question is identified as David Lilley.

That picture would have to be from an early catalogue, as there is no Jazzmaster, Jaguar or Jazz Bass- looks like a 'whole of the Fender range' shot from about 1957.

I think the then current amp range is also shown in the photo but I think the picture may be cropped as the amps were in front on the floor 'below' the lap steels .
The amps were all 'tweed' covered models.

I've seen that picture before, on a website which has such shots from old US guitar catalogues, but it was in black & white I think.

Also there are no rosewood fingerboards, and only the 'limited' full range of 1950's models shown. The Strat is also the only one with a custom colour option (one fiesta red and the two others are sunburst)

That's my deduction Watson, so there...