bor64 wrote:Hi Svein,
Hanks black strat was a 1970 sample.
In 1965/66 Fender changed the small headstock of the strat to a lager headstock and they keep it that way on the standard strat till 1982!!
The four bolt one piece maple neck with large headstock was used only a short time because 59 to 65/66 was small headstock rosewood.
Only as a custom option a maple cap instead of a rosewood fretboard.
65/66 till 70 Rosewood with large head and also a maple cap option(think Hendricks white strat at Woodstock).
70 till first half 71 a solid maple neck was also a very rare option (the maple cap version from the 60's are more common).
71 the maple neck(rosewood too) was change to a 3 bolt version and with micro tilt and bullet trust rod adjustment at the nut side.
So Hanks neck on the black strat was original along the years he used it.
Why do you think it's a non Fender 50's neck...the decal is clearly to see on most pictures.
In the second half of the 80's he use a Griffin neck on his 58 fiesta red strat for some years.
Cheers Rob
I can confirm that Svein's description of that photo is accurate, Rob, because I saw it too. Tuesday, I think. I can't remember which Facebook group it was posted on and it's annoying me. I should have saved the image.
The guitar certainly looks like the black Strat (with black scratchpate and plastic parts), but it indeed does have a replacement neck with a non-Fender decal (not legible in the photo) and a small, '50s-style headstock. The neck is one-piece maple and appears to have some flame figuring.
The picture is definitely late '80s. One key indicator of the date is that Hank is wearing a pair of aviator glasses and, although the picture is in black and white, they're clearly a paler colour than black, which tells me they're the red pair. The picture was, from left to right, Brian (sat/kneeling), Hank (sat/kneeling) and Bruce (standing), posing together outside, smiling for a publicity shot/shoot. The guitar was the only instrument in the photo, if I recall correctly. I didn't look at the photo for long, but it stuck out in my mind for two reasons: 1: It is, in my experience, unheard of to see Hank with the combination of red glasses and black Strat, and 2: just like you gents, I'd not seen a different neck on that guitar before.
This shot was taken a few years after Hank stopped using the black Strat onstage, but I have heard it suggested that he continued using it in the studio for a fair while after it was retired from stage use. How reliable that rumour is I don't know, but it could explain why a new neck might be required long after the instrument was no longer used for performance. If it is the famous black Strat, and it looks a lot like it, it's probably one of the last official pictures taken of it before Hank gave it to Ben, prior to its last-known makeover in the '90s.