Fender’s Rarities Collection frontrunner is the Flame Maple Top Stratocaster

Fender has launched its premium series for the year, the Rarities Collection, with the Flame Maple Top Stratocaster. The main highlights of this axe are its high-end tonewoods and pickup configuration.

Taking a look first at this guitar’s tonewoods, its crowning glory, it features a two-piece alder body, solid rosewood neck and flame maple fingerboard and top. The fingerboard has a compound radius to facilitate chords at the cowboy end and soloing at the higher frets. As an added touch, the Fender branding on the headstock is laser-etched, which the brand notes is only done on solid rosewood pieces.

Moving over to the electronics, this Strat features a HSS configuration offering both modern and traditional tones, plus an ace in the hole. The latter refers to an S-1 switch that takes the DoubleTap humbucker in the bridge position from a humbucking tone to single-coil one. The Pure Vintage ’65 single-coils at the neck and middle positions, as you would guess, provide the classic sounds.

Check out the guitar here:

Lists at $2,499.99. More information at fender.com.