Also, teal is a very respectable Strat color, very surf music vibe. It’ll grow on you. I’d love to have a teal Strat.
A morning check-in and jeez, lots of progress. Sounds like you are headed in the right direction, albeit rather quickly. I trust you’ll love the Blues Jr. (get a pedal)
As for the Strat, you seem to already realize: if you find yourself wanting to play it, you need to listen to that. **squeegee **is offering good observations and advice - including trying other guitars - but ending up with a teal Strat could be a great end to this chapter in your guitar acquisition story. A Surf Green or Daphne Blue Strat are custom color legends - just go to the Gear Page and do a search on either color in the General Guitars forum.
You can thicken up a Strat tone - get a pedal. Definitely try an overdrive - Bad Monkeys are dirt cheap and reliable - but a distortion pedal is all about thickening up your tone, so I suspect you could make good use of one. Confirm whether either Tone control on the Strat affects your bridge pickup - on some Strats, they don’t (hence **squeegee’s **comment on incomprehensible tone controls), so you can’t roll off highs. If you like that Strat and If you find that a Blues Jr. + stomp box combo doesn’t bring the thick rock enough, then you can get an easy mod done to get the bridge pickup wired to a tone control. Roll it off to about 8 or so and you could be in heaven.
Keep us posted.
That’s **Les Paul: Chasing Sound **and is available on DVD - I have a copy; totally worth it.
…and it is never too late to start playing!
And if its Lake Placid Blue (the Fender color that looks most ‘teal’ to me), I’m totally drooling. I love that color on a guitar.
That might be it (I don’t have a good memory for colours).
Looking at my poor little amp with no guitar plugged into it this morning, I might have to skip the whole ‘broaden my horizons and try an SG and a Les paul, etc’ thing.
A guitar in the hand is worth two in the store.
I will second that. I started at age 50 and have been loving it ever since. Seems like a good way to get through a midlife crisis! 
Yaay!!! Congratulations! I know you’ll be happy together.
(Hmmm, that looks like Sea Foam Green to me, not teal. I like it! And a maple fingerboard, I loves me some of that.)
Coolness - and if anything, that’s Daphne Blue…very cool.
Now - go get a pedal. 
And play the crap out of your rig - looks like a ton of fun.
Thanks Squeegee & Wordman for all the encouragement. I would still have been playing the same old piece of crap for the next twenty years if it had not been for this thread.
It’s Surf Green. Dunno where I got teal from.
I think it’s the fingerboard that made me fall in love. It just screams quality and my fingers just slide over it.
Any idea how I can find out the exact model? It’s made in Mexico and says "original contour body " on the head. Guy in store said it’s a remake of the '57 (or something).
Got the serial# ? It should be stamped on the back of the headstock. I think there’s sites that let you look up a guitar using that. WordMan will likely know about this stuff, his guitar geekery is legend.
MZ7084582 - I found a few sites that tell me that it was made in Mexico in 2007. But not the exact model.
Not sure on the exact model - I would have to hang out in a few Fender-ific message boards and/or websites. But it should be find-able.
AFAIK, the Mexican Strats are most commonly just “Stratocasters” with nothing in front of them unless they are a specific run like “Roadworn” or “Nashville” (which is a Tele with a middle pickup installed), etc…they are nicknamed “Mexi-Strats” and are considered to be an excellent buy and often as good as or better than their U.S. counterparts…
That might be considered a '57 simply because 1957 is considered “the best” year for the 50’s maple-necked Strats - although '57 is a LOT less revered as a Strat year vs., say 52 for a Tele (hence the 52 Reissue that is the standard U.S. Tele model) or '59 for a Les Paul Standard Sunburst…
I thought the Fender nomenclature these days was “Standard Stratocaster” for a MiM strat. ?
I’m sure its something like that - you’re right, there is an “official” designation. Perhaps check Fenders’ website?
Just wondering if I was getting my countries straight.
Fender’s websitelists models - just check out the Standard Strat (as opposed to American Standard, which is U.S. made)…
These pages get updated when they shift models - and they tend to make changes almost yearly to keep patsies like me engaged - but something like the Standard is, well, standard…
That looks like mine.
Yours is very likely this one, in Surf Green. However, Surf Green is not a currently available color for this model, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t available in 2007. As WordMan said, Fender shakes this stuff up all the time. There’s undoubtedly a resource out there which tracks Stratocaster minutiae of this sort. It does say “Made In Mexico” on the headstock, right?
Yes it does.
My new friend and I spent some time bonding last night. I ran through pretty much every song I know. What a joy!
I need some new material though. There is only so many times you can play Something followed by Wish You Were Here followed by Maggie May.
Important question: Do you people name your guitars? It feels disrespectful to be calling her the “new strat”.