David Gilmour’s 1965-67 Fender Stratocaster

David received this Fender Stratocaster guitar from his new bandmates, upon officially joining Pink Floyd in early 1968. At that time, the only guitar he owned was a white Fender Telecaster, and the band felt David needed at least one more guitar to have as a backup if nothing else.

Most notably, David played the Stratocaster at the free Hyde Park concert on June 29, 1968, and on the first three concert tours he did with Pink Floyd.

Toward the end of the last tour, in 1970, the guitar went missing after someone stole the truck that the band hired to transfer all of their equipment while they were in New Orleans, Louisiana. The truck was eventually found, but two of David’s guitars, including this white Stratocaster, were already gone – so, that was the end of this guitar.

We were in New Orleans and there was a fantastic live club there. We were there and our truck which was a U-Haul rented truck was parked on the street and got stolen. The whole truck just disappeared – all our gear.

We called the local police and think the next night we were sat around in New Orleans at the great hotel looking out over the river the Mississippi with a fantastic roof terrace and enjoyed ourselves and the police then found the truck and brought it back to us. The only thing missing were four guitars which I think were two Strats and two bases.

The David Gilmour Podcast – The Black Strat (Episode 1)