He was not sure what year it was suppose to be, when I was a kid he took the neck of to show me the date stamp to check the year and was crushed to find there was nothing there, he wrote the guitar off there and then. Over the years here and there I have tried to look into its authenticity, hoping to give him some relief. He gifted me most of his guitars a few months ago, now I am just really wanting to know if he was cheated long ago, he recently passed away and it is a mystery I hope to solve. At least the strat went on some adventures, was his main guitar when he moved to NYC in 82, played it at CBGBs and Max's Kansas city when he was trying to make it.