If you are looking for a Fender Stratocaster, eBay is probably worth a browse. Many famous guitar players favored the Strat, so why not try to get this distinguished instrument for a bargain basement price?
The name Fender Stratocaster is a little bit misleading because these two words can mean many things to many guitar players. The first question you need to answer when considering buying a Fender Stratocaster on eBay is which model Strat do you need? Basically a Stratocaster has been adopted by players in the genres of rock and roll, blues, soul, funk and pop. There has even been the odd jazz guitarist to take up the Strat. If you are a new guitar player wanting to learn heavy metal, then the Strat is probably not for you.
The older Stratocasters were manufactured with three single-coil pickups. Some later models have a humbucker at the bridge which will give you the option of departing from that classic Strat sound, but this option is not popular amongst guitar players.
You should think about whether you need to use the whammy bar in your guitar playing. The Fender Stratocaster is not a guitar with a good reputation in the whammy department, in spite of one of the early Strat players, Hank Marvin, using the whammy almost constantly.
When you are looking on eBay for a Fender Stratocaster you need to have on hand some details on the features of the Strat models available. You can get this info from Fender’s website, Wikipedia and guitar forums.
eBay has become a great place for shonky guitar sellers to peddle fake brand name merchandise. The Fender Stratocaster is no exception to this trend. The origin of many fake Strats is Asia. Sometimes the country of origin of the guitar is hidden by the vendor appearing to be selling from the USA.
eBay has a feedback system that allows you to get an idea of how well the vendor has pleased his previous customers. If a seller you are interested in has nothing to hide, his feedback will be there for you to see. So be careful if you are thinking of dealing with a guitar vendor with no feedback or who has chosen to keep it hidden.
One reason for alarm bells to go off in your head when you are looking for a Fender Stratocaster on eBay is a ridiculously low price. If someone is selling a Fender Strat for one hundred dollars, look out!
