On “Black Friday”, November 28th, Fender’s Custom Shop released the Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Stratocaster guitar.  It’s an exact replica of Yngwie’s original Olympic White 1971 “Play Loud” Fender Stratocaster.  “Play Loud” refers to a sticker on the upper horn of the Strat and if you’re wondering the tribute guitar has it too, along with every other scratch, dent and bite mark on the guitar.

Yngwie bought his original Strat in 1978 and performed the delicate “scalloping” of the neck himself.  Scalloping refers to routing out the fret board between the frets to help facilitate string bending and other virtuoso guitar playing techniques like finger-tapping.

Here’s a good shot of what a “scalloped” fretboard looks like:

Scalloped Fretboard

This shot was taken from the Fender’s “Artist Series” Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster - an earlier remake of Yngwie’s guitar but without all of the aging, nicks and scratches that make the “Tribute” series version so unique.

If you’re up for the task and really want that fast action, string bending goodness that comes with scalloping your guitar there are few resources online.  We found a nice article on ProjectGuitar.com that takes you through the scalloping process.

The new Yngwie Malmsteen Tribute Stratocaster is retailing now for $12,500.00 each.  Given the price and the amount of handmade work that goes into building a replica like this one, we’re assuming this is a limited series run.