I wonder....................

[raybies]

I was wondering about the rarity of this guitar. It may be a good addition to the collection.


1978 Music Man Stingray I Electric Guitar

Designed by Leo Fender after he sold the Fender brand, this was an improvement to the stratocaster. Extremely rare and collectible, book value on these guitars is over $1400 in 'good' condition. This has been hiding under the bed for the better part of 20 years. These guitars are going up in value, must sell due to financial circumstances.

All original with original case, 1978 Musicman Stingray I 6 String electric guitar in natural finish with black pickguard and maple neck. $1200 OBO.
Guitar pictured below for reference only, actual guitar has black pickguard.

---

In 1965 Leo Fender, the creator of the Fender Stratocaster
and other electric and accoustic guitars and a full line of amplifiers, sold his company to CBS Music and stayed with them as a consultant.
When he did, they told him, "It's time to start mass production of these guitars and amps."

His response was that his guitars were hand-crafted - not made on the assembly line. When CBS stood their ground, Leo quit. When he quit,in 1966, his crew of hand-craftsmen quit with him.

This made CBS mad enough to file an injunction against Leo stating that he could never again use the name "Fender" in conjunction with any kind of musical instrument or accessory and that he could not compete against them by manufacturing any musical instrument or accessory for seven (maybe it was 5 or 10) years.

During this waiting period, Leo and his men got together and came up with seventeen patentable improvements to the Stratocaster. This was done while Leo was with CLF Research according to the book Fender, the Inside Story by Forrest White.They included these improvements on the Music Man Sting Ray I and II guitars. Some of the improvements were Active Tone Controls powered by a built-in pre-amp, New and highly improved Pick-ups, a Micro-tilt Neck Adjustment feature and more. (The complete list is below.)

Look at these improvements that were added above and beyond the stratocaster!!

Newly developed tuning keys for more precise pitch adjustment.
New head design to allow strings to pull straight across nut.
Head design also reinforced to provide extra strength at neck's weakest point.
Rock hard phenolic nut to resist wear.
One piece rock maple neck with truss rod installed from rear for maximum stability and precise adjustment.
Neck tilt adjustment eliminates need for shims and assures any desireable action may be readily achieved.
Dual large magnet, hand-wound humbucking pickups (see below for details on this).
Three screw pickup adjustment to allow height and tilt control.
An internal micropowered preamp (see below for details on this).
Recessed bridge adjustment screws in individual saddle adjustment sections which do not interfere with picking or muting.
Active tone controls creating the ability to change volume without changing tone.
Four position selector switch to allow both in-phase and out-of-phase connection.
Built-in bright switch.
Solid heavy-duty bridge assembly mounted in brass inserts to improve tone and increase sustain.
Special tapered string posts to insure tighter winding when putting on new strings.
Newly designed strap buttons to eliminate the need for strap locks and reduce premature enlargement of straps.
Three screw neck attachment for stability and ease of adjustment.
*** The two pickups each have twelve (12) quarter-inch diameter magnet posts! The increased sized magnets improve tonal response to accommodate light guage strings. These special humbucking pickups are hand wound to eliminate microphonic winding and guarantee a tightly wound coil for the best magnetic performance.

*** The preamp isolates pickups from the tone control circuitry and provides a low impedance output. It effectively creates a "bass volume" control and a "treble volume" control which allows the "main volume" control the ability to change volume with absolutely no change in tone, and with a single knob adjustment. The preamp also accommodates longer guitar cords, greatly increases the output level for better sustain and overdrive, and even allows you to practice by just plugging headphones right into the guitar!

* Location: Vancouver East

 

[threeminutesboy]

that's pretty much your call , I have never played this model and can't tell how different/rare it is compare to the current production.

You can always give it a try if you like it, keep it, if not then sell it to someone else

 

[beej]

Keep in mind there's no relation to any of the current MM guitars. Sterling & Dudley started from scratch on the guitar front.

 

[John C]

Interesting guitars; I remember picking one up and strumming it back in the day. Not sure about the going rate; another resource for you on these would be the guitarsbyleo.com forum. A few of the G&L guys are also into the Leo-era Music Man guitars.

I'm guessing the person on craigslist did a copy-and-past from this odd website on the old Music Man guitars - there is quite a bit of "editorializing", particularly this part:

. . .
In 1965 Leo Fender, the creator of the Fender Stratocaster
and other electric and accoustic guitars and a full line of amplifiers, sold his company to CBS Music and stayed with them as a consultant.
When he did, they told him, "It's time to start mass production of these guitars and amps."

His response was that his guitars were hand-crafted - not made on the assembly line. When CBS stood their ground, Leo quit. When he quit,in 1966, his crew of hand-craftsmen quit with him.

This made CBS mad enough to file an injunction against Leo stating that he could never again use the name "Fender" in conjunction with any kind of musical instrument or accessory and that he could not compete against them by manufacturing any musical instrument or accessory for seven (maybe it was 5 or 10) years.

. . .

You know, I think Leo Fender was mass producing guitars, basses and amps in his factory at that time; the entire Fender guitar was designed to be modular and produced as efficiently as possible. Leo didn't quit in a huff in 1966; CLF was still doing design R&D for CBS/Fender for at least 5 years - the last item being the micro-tilt neck attachment. Of course, CBS did continuously ramp up production, which eventually led to the quality reduction of the 1970s, but let's not get nostalgic for any kind of "hand craftmanship" - these weren't people with hand tools carving out a couple of instruments a month; Fender was a production operation but on a much smaller scale than during the CBS era. And many of Leo's old personnel quit over these cost cutting/production issues. Others stayed with Fender and were still there when CBS sold the company in 1985. Leo sold out because he was ill and becuse he didn't know much about solid state circuits - which he thought would be the "wave of the future" for amplification. He was looking to slow down but keep the company going and took the consulting contract as part of the sale.

There was a 10-year non-compete with CBS/Fender as part of the sale; that is why Leo was a "silent partner" in Music Man from 1973-1975; when it expired he came into the light as a partner in the company. CLF Research design and built the Music Man guitars and basses; when Leo had a falling out with Forrest White and Tom Walker, he sold out of Music Man but CLF still made the instruments for a couple of years. Leo essentially made both the Music Man line and the G&L line in the same factory for a year or two until the Music Man contract with CLF was broken; Leo then dropped the "CLF Research" name and the facility in Fullerton continued on under the G&L name.

 

[raybies]

Thanks JohnC. You have helped me decide that this is not a sought after product. I just Know that now MUSICMAN builds the best product around. Thanks BIGPAPA and all the staff at Musicman.

 

[straycat113]

Great post John C as I was going to point it out, but in fact you carried it further than I could and I even learned something new along the way.

 

[John C]

Great post John C as I was going to point it out, but in fact you carried it further than I could and I even learned something new along the way.

Thanks. I don't want to take up too much of BPs bandwidth on history that happened prior to EB purchasing the company, but here was the "business side" of the Music Man deal (from what I've read):

Forrest White and Tom Walker, both former long-time Fender employees who had left the firm during the 1960s, wanted to form a new company primarily to develop a new amp design that would combine some tube and some solid state technology. They approached their old friend/employer Leo Fender for some advice; he liked what he heard and decided to invest in their company and provide his knowledge, insight, etc. This was around 1972/73, so Leo had to be an "unnamed investor" due to his non-compete with CBS/Fender until 1975. Music Man was organized as a company primarily to design and build amplifiers; the factory they built was an amp factory.

Leo also owned the company CLF Research - that was his consulting company where he and his employees developed new technologies and designs like the micro-tilt neck, etc. CLF Research was maintained as an independent company.

Music Man decided they wanted to add instruments to their lineup; they contracted separately with Leo Fender's CLF Research company to design and build the guitars and basses. The Sting Ray bass, Sabre bass, Sting Ray guitar, and Sabre guitar were that eventual output and Leo geared up to produce his designs at CLF Research.

Leo had a falling out with White and Walker and, per their partnership agreement in Music Man, sold his share of the company back to them. That didn't impact his "supplier" contract where CLF Research supplied the instruments to Music Man. As mentioned in the other post Leo and George Fullerton began working on other designs and they formed G&L Guitars to market the new designs. This of course led to issues between Music Man and CLF Research. Fender and Fullerton said that Music Man wasn't sending them orders and were trying to squeeze them out (see Fullerton's book for that side of the story); White said that the Music Man instruments were defective (see White's book for this side of the story). They are all gone now and the real story is gone with them. Either way the contract between CLF and Music Man was terminated and CLF Research became solely G&L Guitars.

These issues certainly hastend the demise of the original Music Man company; EB bought the name, designs and what was left of the amp inventory in 1984 and put the Sting Ray bass back into production (and also the Sabre bass if I'm not mistaken, although it has been discontinued).