In 1996, Fender’s 50th anniversary, Eric Clapton asked the Fender Custom Shop to build a one of a kind guitar. John Page, then vice president of the Fender Custom Shop, recalls that “Eric was in the search of something special, a piece that could hang in a museum like the Louvre”. John thought about gilding a Stratocaster using 23K gold leaves, it took three trials prior to finding the right combination of finish/hardware.
EC’s guitar was built by Masterbuilder Mark Kendrick with gold pickguard, control knobs and pickup covers. Eric replaced the pickguard, pickups, and control knobs with the usual white plastic components found on his Signature Stratocaster. The guitar was extensively used in 1997, and sold for $455,000 on June 24th 2004 during the Christies charity auction for the Crossroads Center which he founded in 1998.
In 2004 Guitar Center introduced a limited Masterbuilt edition of the Gold Leaf Strat which retailed for $8000 with a one year embargo preventing orders for similarly gilded Strats, many collectors bought these as investments. Ironically, a year later anyone could order a Masterbuilt Eric Clapton Stratocaster with a 23k gold leaf body for $4500, the so-called limited edition investment just lost 50% in a day, for life.
Even then, $4,500 is not exactly cheap, luckily with a bit of patience you can gild your own guitar body and replace the stock body from a Fender Eric Clapton Strat (production or Teambuilt Custom Shop model).
I based mine on a brand new Fender Custom Shop Teambuilt Eric Clapton Stratocaster in Mercedes blue finish:
The body was replaced by a USACG one-piece alder body finished with 23k gold leaves clear-coated with polyurethane. I also replaced the Vintage Noiseless pickups with a set of Hot Gold Lace Sensors, and upgraded to gold hardware from Fender (except for the bridge from Gotoh):
