The ShadowMusic Web Community

This is how I remember the early strats used by The Shadows not the Fiesta Red colour we see these days !! This guitar below is a current Fender Strat in Coral Pink, what do you think

Hi Derek, I saw these on coda a while back, I like the colour and the spec, but...everything was black and white in the early days, nowadays its 50 shades of grey. regards Gary

Hi, Derek.

I'm sure that some of the red Strats, Jazzmasters, Jaguars and basses sold by Selmer and Jennings were Coral Pink. Neither company ever specified the finish more precisely than just "red".

Yep, that's the colour burned into my brain.
Not red, pink.

JimN wrote:I'm sure that some of the red Strats, Jazzmasters, Jaguars and basses sold by Selmer and Jennings were Coral Pink. Neither company ever specified the finish more precisely than just "red".

Yes, I wonder what shade of 'red', as per the Selmer description, it actually was back in the monochrome days of 1963?


Bill

We have here in Sheffield an original 1959 red Strat in original condition so for me there's no doubt - the serial number is close to Hank's.
The same guitar is identical in colour to my thirty year old Vintage re-issue, same as the one played by Colin Pryce-Jones of The Rapiers. Whether or not it is identical to the one in this picture is debatable, it depends on what colour lighting is hitting it at any given time, certain lighting can make this red look pink or dark red, which leads me to believe Fender USA never did forget the colour, though the Japs & Mexicans may have.

I thought that it was well established that Fender never had "coral pink" or "salmon pink" in its colour catalog. I saw the Shadows at the Paris Olympia in 1961, and I dont remember Hank's Strat looking pink but red.
keep in mind that inthe early sixties most Strats were shipped in sunburst, and that many were locally repainted in fiesta red by UK distibutors to meet the demand, and it was not necessarily exacty the same as the original Fender fiesta red colour.

Different shades of fiesta red sampled on various existing guitars by a professional paint expert :



Didier

who cares about the shade? http://cache4.asset-cache.net/gc/112059323-cliff-richard-and-jayne-mansfield-posed-1959-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=lGnjDs01aeQKqjld9R%2fRaX1OGNZPhQHEMGCqotADYreWfpm75lxclEmkaaLW%2fIKC5JXzb%2bk33HtLwa1ibonMGw%3d%3d

Didier wrote:I thought that it was well established that Fender never had "coral pink" or "salmon pink" in its colour catalog. I saw the Shadows at the Paris Olympia in 1961, and I dont remember Hank's Strat looking pink but red.Didier

I don't say, because I don't know, that Hank's first Strat was finished in Coral Pink.

But Fender did have a Coral Pink (or perhaps Coral Red) finish in their range, certainly in the early to mid sixties if no earlier. There was a spate of Jaguars, Jazzmasters and Jazz Basses delivered in the UK with CP on the headstocks (under the logo decal) as well as being the body colour, so theses were clearly not re-finishes.

I saw several original mint Fenders in CP at Jim Elyea's props warehouse in the Hollywood area and immediately recognised the colour from guitars in stock at Hessy's and Crane's (both Liverpool) circa 1963. They were just sold as "red".

Joking aside, the same colour always looks different on a maple neck compared with a rosewood.