ROB WARMOWSKI: Welcome to Gearwire.Com everybody. I'm Rob Warmowski and I'm here at the Chicago Guitar Show. I'm here with Tim Mullaly from Dave's Guitar Shop of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Tim, thanks so much for stopping by with us.

TIM MULLALY: You're welcome, Rob.

ROB WARMOWSKI: We are here. We're going to get some information about a guitar, a Stratocaster, a '63 Strat. This is an actual '63, not a reissue or a Fender relic, and it's got the eye-popping price tag here of almost $30,000, so we're going to get a story as to why the price and what the history is of this guitar from expert Tim Mullaly here.

TIM MULLALY: Well, as you can see with the color they call Candy Apple Red, which was quite common for them to use in that era '63, '62, up through '64 and later. It was considered a custom color from Fender that they had done. It was kind of fun but what's unique about this guitar, let me show you really quick, you can see a hint of the original sunburst poking through the Candy Apple Red in various spots of wear, so what they did was they took a sunburst body that was already finished, they had an order for a custom color come in, they grabbed the body, sprayed it, and that's they way it was done. Back then, they were just utility items, they took a body, sprayed, and the product was gone. Sold it.

ROB WARMOWSKI: So, is that -- should we take away from that back in the '50s, if it was time to repaint the guitar, they would actually sand the guitar body or is that I mean why is that rare?

TIM MULLALY: A lot of times, it really didn't matter. If they had an order for a color, they had a body waiting, they sprayed it, and that's just what it was. Yup, but yeah, kind of fun, Candy Apple Red over sunburst, the original sunburst.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Yeah, that is beautiful. What kind of wood is that on the neck?

TIM MULLALY: That's a maple neck, a little bit hint of Bird's Eye there which is kind of fun.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Yeah. It seems a little colorful for maple.

TIM MULLALY: Yeah, you can see how the lacquer's yellowed and worn in various spots, getting to the original wood and then the yellowed lacquer on top of that. So yeah, kind of fun.

ROB WARMOWSKI: And have you played this one?

TIM MULLALY: A little bit. Great guitar. Great guitar. [CHUCKLING] Definitely a fun guitar.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Terrific.

TIM MULLALY: Yeah. Yeah.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Well thanks for showing us the '63 Strat with the sunburst underneath and the custom color on top.

TIM MULLALY: There you go.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Tim, thanks so much.

TIM MULLALY: You're welcome, Robert.