Jimi Monterey strat duplicate paint replica variations

May 24, 2016 8:43 PM

There's Jimis legendary original version which lasted one night, there is a John Mayer copy of it that for some reason varies slightly, and then there is seemingly a third version where a rose is replaced by a yellow and pink daisy in the corner with some additional yellow dots and tiny amended details.

I found different sources claiming the two non-John Mayer paint job replicas are the replica of the real thing. Anyone know the history of this? I know fender got involved at some point.

posted by jitterbug perfume to Grab Bag (1 answer total)

Best answer: All I'm finding is that the Fender Custom Shop did a limited run of 200-some guitars back in '97. Hand-painted by Pamelina H (Facebook link) "based on" Jimi's DIY paint job, it looks like they all have a rose on the upper bout. Mayer is known to own a few (3-5) of these guitars (which are now supposedly worth $15 to $20 K .)

Everything else out there is some kind of custom paint job, no involvement with Mayer or Fender.

As far as "accuracy" - shrug. There apparently aren't any actual color photos of Jimi's Monterey guitar, only stills from the film, and not many of those show the guitar clearly. A Google image search suggests that his had a yellow daisy-looking flower on the upper bout, but other than that you'd have to obsessively pore over the film and stills to get every single detail. Which I figure some of the people doing custom paint jobs would have done, but likely others would just go for "close enough."
posted by soundguy99 at 6:32 AM on May 25, 2016