dave robinson wrote:145gns in 1959 = £3602 today
Fenders were marked up like mad by Jennings and Selmer (when a Strat sold for about £165). Some of the difference was made up by Purchase Tax, of course. At the dawn of the 1960s, it was set at about 25% (it had been higher, especially in the late 1940s). So of 145 guineas (£152.25), the first £30.45 (approximately, assuming a 25% rate) was PT.
The "real" net price in the USA was more like half of the street price in the UK and closer to what an American guitar (such as the new Fender Professional II range) costs today.