No One Likes These Guitars...but they should 

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I was a young (poor) player in ‘79 but lusted after a real American strat. Blame Hendrix, Clapton, Gilmour for that. So I walked into neighborhood store and tell him that. He said he has one in the back ready to go back to Fender because no one wants it! To me it was beautiful!!! Still have it, and some respected players have told me that it’s the best strat they ever played!!!! Was stolen, found it in a pawn shop, called the cops, court gave it back to me. Boy what a ride that Antigua has had. Some people still ask me about it to this day and are pleasantly surprised I still have it! ❤my Antigua

I think the Antigua finish is legitimately nice. It has always reminded me of an old photograph from the late 1800s in someone's family album.

At 4:04 -- "Yeah, it was fun, Steve." Steve? Steve? I didn't see that coming.

I think you got really lucky with that one! An Antigua '79 Hardtail was my first Fender and it was nearly 10lbs. Great color!

I do love how they committed to making the guitars despite the aesthetic issue

I think the color is classy looking. goes well with the neck. Very clean. The 3 bolt is 2 screws with 1 bolt with a slug just as strong.

Looks like the styrofoam ceiling tiles in my parents' old house. Dad smoked in there for twenty years, then I did for ten.

I really love this finish. Personally I would put a black pickguard on it but the colour is so cool

Excellent insight and demo. Great gear setup choice. Thank you for everything you do Steve!

Those guitars deserve more love,this finish looks lovely on jazz basses too

The picture shown at 2:12 looks way better. I think the problem with the Antigua finish is the greenish burst. Going for more of a brown burst around the edges is actually quite appealing.

Ernie Ball has a Cutlass in a finish they call Brulee. Looks like a toasted marshmallow. Love that finish. Antigua Burst looks like there was a problem with the marshmallow, and it wasn't noticed until the toasting started.

This is easily one of my favorite Fender finishes ever. Cheers!

I'd swear that actual guitar is my first strat! I bought the only antigua strat they had from Long & McQuade in Windsor Ontario in 1981. When new, they were a grey burst and beautiful! Only later did they start to yellow and turn green looking. Loved that guitar, take care of it!

it is great how you have so much fun. All the best.

Love the color of that strat

It looks awesome.

I love it!

I played a 76 (i think) with the three bolt neck plate, CBS era, heavily hated on… best guitar I’ve ever played in my life.

Love that thing

I LOVE the Antigua on all of Fender's stuff. Also you should check out some of the obscure guitar brands, shapes, and designs from the former Soviet Union back in the 70s. They have some interesting stuff.

I bought one of these in the very early 80's, stripped the paint off and that's it. I loved it and gigged the heck out of it. It's still stock ( except for a refret and new nut ) and I still play it all of the time.

Just bought the online courses, thanks for the discount!

I think it looks beautiful, it looks classic. Love that it’s a hard tail too. But at the end of the day, looks are always only secondary, it’s how it plays, how it feels, and how you feel playing it.

BY FAR my favorite finish on guitar. Would do heinous things for an Antigua jazz bass.

I personally love the antigua burst finish! I am lucky enough to own a Squier Vintage Modified baritone jazzmaster in the antigua burst finish and it is beautiful. I've since replaced the antigua pickguard with a tortoise shell one that my dad and I cut out but I still have the original.

Always liked those finishes

My only issue with the Antigua burst guitars is the burst is also applied to the pickguard. If it were just a brown to off white fade with a parchment or cream pickguard, it'd be fine

Love the channel 👏

Beautiful Guitar IMO.

That is a great Strat, congrats! I like Antigua!

I love this finish!!!!!!!

i think the finish is just great and gave me the feel of country guitar

I’m kind of amazed if they’re not better liked, that’s a really cool sepia/washed out black and white photograph look to me. It has a real antique vibe.

I've always liked and wanted a strat with an antiqua finish. Now I'm worried there's something wrong with me

Happy to deliver my take to the masses. Thanks, Sammy G

Awesome video, Steve! 🤣

Cool color, cool guitar. I would get one.

Love it

Very cool finish indeed! I would swap out the black pickups though.

Antigua finish hard tail strat has been my dream guitar since 1980, but I've never had the funds/had one available. I'm utterly in love with that colour.

I've of my friends had one in the early 80's. Everyone laughed at his guitar to the point he was going to sand it down and repaint it. I begged him not to do it. Long story short, he didn't and I loved playing that guitar and, I borrowed it to use half the night on the very first paid gig I played back then. Great Memories

I got my 79 strat on my 21st birthday it had been sitting in the shop for two years until I came along It was antique white sort of off white with black knobs and scratch plate. After six months of playing on stage pink spots started appearing on the back of the guitar and on the front where my arm rested. I don't know weather it was the undercoat coming through or weather the guitar was mistakenly painted red and quickly painted over with the white. The guitar shop took the body back and repainted it bright white at my request and I got a white mother of pearl scratch plate so the black knobs could be seen instead of a big black blob in the middle of the guitar. it has been a great work horse over the years but compared to my custom shop 56 reissue is quite a lot heavier. The older I get I tend to use the 56 reissue because it is lighter and my amp is getting smaller as technology in small amps progresses. Except for the colour issues at the start it has been a great guitar and it has taken me all over Australia and New Zealand playing music.

That's a classy guitar. I can't believe I've never seen one of these. It reminds me of old parchment.

I think the finish looks great. Looks classy and clean...classic.

I love the look of the Antigua burst

Love it, i'm a sucker for the big headstock anyways😁🎸🤘🎸

That color is beautiful, it looks like sand, and the ocean waves stop at the edges leaving wet sand. It's such a relaxing tone. i noticed that some of them are straight up green, idk about that.

I don't like the very greenish "old eggs" looking colour some antiguas have ended up with, especially the telecasters, but this one has a nice smoky ivory come tea-stained parchment looking colour. I honestly prefer that to for example a pure white or dark gray.

When they were reissued about 20 years ago they made me think about things I’d seen that were heavily nicotine stained, but in a pleasing way Cigarette burst instead of tobacco burst

Steve?! lol nice video. Enjoying the change up in camera angles. Great video. I'm very neutral on that finish.

It's so sweet when he calls you Steve and I have to think to realise who that is 😊

I bought the reissue when it was released years ago. I love it.

id absolutely rock an antigua finish jazz bass they look really cool

I like the contrast of the black plastics of the PU covers and knobs againsts the lighter body colour and how that is framed by the burst and the way it is echoed in the pickguard edge. However, I don't think there is enough contrast between body colour and that used for the burst, make it pop more like the pickguard edge does.

When I was taking gyutae lesson at a shop that carried Fender in 1968 I fell in love with an antigua Coronado.

Whaaat? Today I was just reading about Antigua finishes on Fenders. Great stuff!

I love it. It looks like it's aged and mellowed out a bit. It reminds me of parchment paper or an old book

I was amazed How Al could work at two desks at the same time...

Ohh I love them. Especially the hardtail. But I really want the Jazz Bass version.

I like the Antigua finish simply because it's not the typical sunburst or solid color you see 99% of the time. I like those too but I'm more attracted to odd and unusual finishes, which is why my strats are a splattercaster and a red plasma burst. In 1979 if you were a gigging musician and you wanted a strat you bought a used one, preferably pre-CBS. Fender's QC was notoriously bad in the late 70's. I was a roadie back then and remember at one gig we had a couple hours to kill after sound check so we walked over to a Guitar Center that was a block away. As we perused the new strats the guitarist noticed that the high E string on one of them left the fretboard above the 12th fret. Obviously neither Fender nor Guitar Center gave a rat's ass about quality control at that time. I'm glad you found a good one but '79 strats have a bad rep for a good reason.

If the fret board was made of ebony or rosewood, it would've looked good

Love Antigua burst

I first saw an Antigua Strat in the early 80’s. It was being played by Stuart Adamson during a televised Big Country gig at Sefton Park, Liverpool, England and immediately fell in love with the finish. I’ve been trying to acquire one just like his for a while now. His had a rosewood neck, most Antigua Strats have a maple neck and it was a hard tail which makes finding the right one even more challenging. I have one of the Fender FSR Antigua Strats from 2012 which is pretty good reproduction of the finish compared to the Japanese reissue which doesn’t look quite right. The 2012 FSR only came with a maple neck and trem so the search goes on. I was surprised by how light the guitar in the video was, most late 70’s Strats are pretty heavy one that light is a good find.

I love my Antigua Burst Jazzmaster Baritone. The cooler definitely grows on you.

I always liked them!

That kind of finish always reminds me of a hot wheels car I had as a kid that would change colors depending on if it got hot or cold water on it

Not often I like these style of guitars, but this looks Awesome 👌, great videos btw

How can anyone hate that guitar? Its a strat and looks awesome

Check the dates under the pick guard! I have what I thought was a 1979 transparent cherry strat that after checking the dates found out it was a 1980. They used the S9 for years, even into 81 or even 82 just because they had all of them already printed.

Antigua Strats didn’t look like that when new. They were more of a white to greyburst. The yellowing makes it look “creamish”.

First time I've seen that finish and I really like it. Black pickups and knobs maybe are slightly odd, but not a big problem

It's so nice to see something different,you know, in an understated way,it lets the guitarist shine instead of the guitar!👍👍👍

That's gorgeous guitar and I want one

I've always liked them. Especially a Jazz Bass.

That’s actually one of my favorites beautiful cream color obviously but such a versatile guitar ❤❤

I've always liked the Antigua finish from photos, never seen one in person though.

I'll have to admit, I didn't pay very close attention to this video while it was playing since I don't really have an opinion on the Antigua, but boy am I glad I stayed till the end 🥰

Love this and I always thought Antigua was a fun finish even though a lot of people call it pea-soup sunburst. My favorite, though is the Antigua Coronados (I own one and I love it so much) - I think it looks really cool around the bound F-holes and pickguard on that body shape. It’s a little less compelling for me on the solid body Fenders, but I like them more and more as time goes by. My favorites are the ones that are darker grey around the edges with not too much green in the mix, like a black and white photograph come to life.

I've always wanted one of those.

Tbh, that finish is awesome!!!

I like the finish, reminds me a bit of silver burst

I always thought it was an avocado finish! 10 years ago I tried a Strymon OB1 compressor and the shop gave me one of these and a Vox AC15 to try it with. I ended up buying the guitar and an AC15!

Love Antigua finish, also your name is Steve? The dude you interviewed said thanks Steve at the end!

I’ve always loved them it looks like those photos you get at theme parks. Like you can pick old west or 1920s gangster.

the used cigarette filter comparison was spot on, that's the reason I like this look, pretty rock&roll if you ask me

I liked the finish.

I think it looks pretty cool

I have the Antigua Squier Jazzmaster Baritone. At first I was wanting the black one, but the odd color scheme has really grown on me.

Your name is Steve?! Nice to meet you!

Yo! I am also in Winnipeg and managed to find myself a brand new made in the USA Yngwie Malmsteen Strat. They are hard to find here! It also has the bullet and oversized head stock! This guitar reminded me of it a bit, minus the scalloped frets. Loving the look of these 70s Strats as of recently!

I love it, last time I played a 79 strat (also a hardtail) it weighed as much as a bass

If someone wants to give me theirs, I’d happily rock it! I’ve always loved the Antigua!

Your right about the pickups, they are a bit bright. Nice quack to them but a bit too much for me in a strat.

I don't have strong feelings about the color either way. I dig the guitar overall. I'm a big fan of hardtails anyway. I love the tones also. Seems to have very good resonance.

its my favorite finish for a strat, no jokes and hardtail strats are the best ones.

I like the color

anyone alive in the 70s, early 80s would have seen someone playing 1 of those! I did I must admit I totally forgot it, but years later I saw a vid and the guitarist was playing 1 and I was thinking WOW, That's the guitar I saw! I LOVE THEM, THE BIG 70's headstock that finish it's different and yeah you either love or hate them! Red strat, no, white with black knobs, pickup covers on a white scratchplate, yeah! Seafoam green, no! an Sunburst, yeah 2 tone or 3! All black yeah, I love that the white in the scratchplate breaks up the black, and I think that's why the Antigua works for me, it's a burst, but the scratchplate emphasises the body shape with the shading!

I bought one in 1979 loved the colour but didn't get on with the bottom E string so did a straight swap for a Gibson Les Paul Custom. Still like the colour of the Antigua fender but I love the Gibson better. I' love to have both guitars tbh