Annie, Are You Okay? The 70th Anniversary 54 Strat.

Guitar Porn… fellas, you know what I am talking about. 

I was lying in bed one evening in April 2024, and just like every other evening, I was doom-scrolling guitar porn and waiting for my wife to finish her end-of-evening machinations and come to bed. That’s when I stumbled on this FB post from Chris at Metronome Music in Mansfield, Ohio: 

“I work for a Fender CS dealer in Ohio. We just received this Limited 70th Anniversary 1954 Super Heavy Relic Strat. This guitar is probably the best relic job I have seen thus far and I wanted to share it. This guitar looks amazing in person!”

 Thanks a lot, Chris. You’re killing me. 

 I knew this was probably gonna lead to trouble, but I bookmarked the post of this beautiful guitar.

The comments on the post echoed Chris’ sentiments about the relic job being a work of art, though anyone who's spent time in collector circles knows the relic debate never fully goes away. I happen to love the relic finishes and when done well, I respect the thought, effort and detail that goes into creating them.

The Fender Limited Edition 70th Anniversary 1954 Stratocaster
In celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the Stratocaster, the Fender Custom Shop rolled out the 70^th Anniversary 1954 Stratocaster. 

 The ash body was initially made available in a Wide Fade Two-Color Sunburst lacquer finish in a host of FCS trademark finish options with varying degrees of wear, from Time Capsule (unscathed) all the way up to Super Heavy Relic.

The guitar features a one-piece quartersawn maple neck with a special soft “V” profile that is said to be based on an “incredible strat” neck from July 1954. Additionally, the neck offers a compound-radius fingerboard (7.25” to 9.5”). 

The package is rounded out with three Custom Shop hand-wound ’54 strat pickups. Other period correct appointments include a single-ply white pickguard and serial-number back plate, 1954-style ABS rounded white pickup covers, skirt-style control knobs and the pièce de resistance – a “football” shaped toggle switch… go ahead, I challenge you: try to find one of these commercially available… I know that I can’t find them anywhere.

BTW –"ABS" stands for Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, a durable, impact-resistant thermoplastic polymer used to mold electric guitar parts. Yeah, I had to look that one up.

4019
Every night, I kept coming back to Chris’ post on Facebook. 

In further researching the model, I was intrigued to realize that the guitar at Metronome Music in Ohio was THE exact same guitar that the Fender Custom Shop was spotlighting on their homepage banner to promote the model and the 70^th anniversary celebration. Fender must have photographed this guitar as the indicative global “showpiece” for this model, and then packaged her up and put her out to dealer inventory.

Wow. I thought that guitar will not last long and will end up in some lucky high-end collector’s archive. This exact guitar is still (at the time of this writing) shown on the FCS website under the available models. 

Metronome Music had this guitar listed at the healthy original MSRP, which was/is no small chunk of change. The guitar was bothering me and I tried to distract myself with other guitars. In May, I actually reached out and established contact with Josh at Metronome Music and I bought a FCS LTD 1951 Telecaster – but that’s another story for another time. Suffice to say, the ’54 strat was gnawing at me and when no one bit by June, I contacted Josh again. We negotiated a bit, came to an agreement, and before I knew it, Serial No. 4019 was on its way to me.

What’s particularly unique about this guitar’s relic work is the discoloration detail around the tuning pegs. I think the Custom Shop added this detail only to these earlier models. I’ve frankly only seen one other similar one in a CA collector’s stash, which I had made some overtures to acquire (the one that got away? Or maybe she’ll come back?). All the other ones, including two more that I own – do not feature this detail. Not sure why the Custom Shop opted to generally forego this detail on the other models, but I really like it. The same discoloration is accented up in the “fret ghosting”, which carries the aesthetic through the neck.

Let’s talk about this neck. Gosh, it’s one of the best necks I have ever played.  

The soft “V” is truly magical; I’ve played quite a few soft “Vs” and truth be told, I do favor them. Some are more pronounced than others. But this one is remarkable. Coupled with the compound radius fingerboard, the neck is like an old friend, and I can’t get enough when I pick it up. It just feels so comfortable. Fender states that this neck is based on “an incredible neck from 1954”. Boy, would I love to know more about the origins of that original neck. When you find something this special, one usually remarks that “they broke the mold when they made that one” but as proven in my other acquisitions, thank God the mold is available for duplication. 

4477
I dig this model; so much so, that I ordered another FCS 54 Annie model from my local Guitar Center (thanks again, Billy). As Ferris says, “It’s so choice… if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.” 

I asked Billy what Guitar Center had in stock for this model in a Super Heavy Relic. He said they had two of them. I negotiated a bit, landed on a price and I bought another one of these (sight unseen, I might add) – serial no. 4477. 

When the box showed up, Billy and I unpacked it, and we gazed in awe when we opened the case. 4477 is a real stunner, too. Remarkable wood grain running through the two-piece ash body, further exposed by the heavy relicing process. Somewhere along the line, Guitar Center corporate must’ve unpacked, noticed and photographed 4477, because she now shows up on the GC website as one of two samples when you look up this model. 

And moreover, there’s that neck again. I could close my eyes and not know which anniversary model I was playing. It wasn’t an accident; this neck is reproduceable.

4117
Around that same time, a rep at Chicago Music Exchange posted that they were having some amazing deals. I found a used FCS 70^th Annie 54 strat on their website – this time in Taos Turquoise over an ash body. After a fair amount of back-and-forth, 4117 found a new home. 

Long before it became a coveted Fender custom color, Taos Turquoise was turning heads on Lincoln automobiles in the mid-1950s. As was often the case, Fender looked to Detroit for inspiration.

Interestingly enough, the Floor Traveler for this guitar shows it was initially sent to Detroit Guitar – which is one of the prominent local FCS dealers in my area. It’s kind of crazy the way things come full circle to where they started.

I love these FCS 70^th Anniversary reissues. They always catch my attention – but three may be the magic number for my collection. Besides, I think I should start saving up for the eventual 75^th Anniversary models. 

I sure hope my wife never reads this.