Used 2023 Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt 1958 Stratocaster by Ron Thorn – Heavy Relic

Sonic Evaluation

If every rose has its thorn, every Ron Thorn guitar sounds positively rosy! This Masterbuilt masterpiece from the Fender Custom Shop is a warm, sweet-sounding Strat that becomes quite rude when you lay into it. It has a woody, twangy attack that captures your pick strike with percussive clarity before the note blooms into full-bodied Fender tone. overall, it has woody, vintage-style bass response with surprising depth, midrange that can bite or sign depending on your mood, and lots of harmonic overtones in the high-end. The bridge pickup is snappy and biting, with a tight low E and jangly, sparkly highs. The in-between positions sound shockingly beefy, but they still have that magical cluck and quack. The neck pickup is deep and throaty, and the middle position strikes the perfect balance between gristle and muscle.

If you're looking for a Strat with a rich vintage voice, you'll get rid of the rose in favor of the Thorn as this serial inspires you to embark on all sorts of exciting fretboard adventures!

Masterbuilt Marvels

When a master craftsman builds an instrument by hand all by themselves from start to finish, it imbues the instrument with a special brand of magical mojo that is easy to see, hear, and feel but hard to quantify. They reflect the individual personality of the builder so much that they attain distinctly human quality that makes them feel like an old friend from the moment you pick them up. It’s almost as if they have souls of their own, and nowhere is this soulfulness more evident than in our collection of Fender Masterbuilt instruments.

Each of the instruments you see on this page is the product of decades of hard work and an endless supply of passion. The people who currently hold the title of Masterbuilder have all spent years learning the ropes from the masters that came before them until they climbed the ranks and reached the upper echelon of elite guitar builders. They are some of the most adept craftspeople in the industry, and their skilled hands imbue the instruments they build with the sort of dynamic response and expressiveness that you normally only find in vintage instruments.

Condition Report

This rambunctious Masterbuilt Ron Thorn Strat is in fantastic shape! It shows some user-created relic-ing (scratches, small dings, tiny chips, and pick marks), the most noticeable of which is some buckle rash on the back. The frets also look fantastic, so it's ready to rip for a long time! It comes with its original hardshell case and a certificate of authenticity, too!