Although it is stated on the previous page the George Fullerton Signature “ ... is the closest thing to a 1959 Stratocaster ever made by G&L”, for this one we have to go back in time a bit more, say 1955 or so. As was the standard between its introduction in 1954 and mid-1958, the Fender Stratocaster would generally have a swamp ash body with a Two-tone Sunburst finish, although after 1956 Fender used alder for so-called Custom Color finishes. The George Fullerton Signature also has the esthetically correct single-ply white pickguard with 8 mounting holes, although Bakelite was the material then while it is plastic now. The control layout consisting of a master volume control and separate (treble cut) tone controls for middle and neck pickups is also correct, except for the capacitor on the tone potentiometer for the neck pickup being half of what was used then. And of course all necks up to mid-1959 were a single piece of maple. On this particular guitar one finds a gun-oil stained Bird’s Eye maple Bi-Cut neck with 12” radius fingerboard, instead of 7¼”, and Dunlop vintage Medium 6230 frets. The neck carve is a late-1950s soft “V” profile that feels amazing. Other upgrades include the 3 CLF-100 Alnico Vintage single-coil pickups with flat pole pieces as also found on the Legacy, a 5-position pickup selector instead of 3-position, and the Dual-Fulcrum Vibrato (DFV). After this model was discontinued in 2008, a year prior to George’s passing, its (now archived) webpage on the G&L website was finally taken down in December 2013.