Mark Knopfler’s 1985 Schecter Stratocaster (White)

Mark acquired this guitar sometime in 1985. It was put together by John Suhr who at the time worked at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York City doing mostly just guitar repairs.

I met Mark Knopfler when he purchased a whole slew of Schecter and Fernandes guitar from Rudy pensa. Soon, however, we got to the point where we were building custom instruments for him. In fact the first full fledged custom guitar that I built from scratch is a white Schecter Stratocaster with a tortoise shell pickguard.

The one I just made for him was a leftover Schecter that hand’t been fretted or shaped yet. I finishe the cut on it, copying a ’61 Fender Strat neck, only I made it fell a little bit nicer.

John Suhr – original source of this interview is needed

The guitar featured a white finish on a Schecter-made Stratocaster-style body, and a Schecter neck – shaped and styled after an original 1961 Fender Stratocaster neck. Suhr used Dunlop 6110 fret wire, but shaped the fretboard for a 10-inch radius when compared to a 7.25 on the original 61 Strat.

He fitted the guitar with a tortoiseshell pickguard, and installed three Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro pickups, and used an original Fender vintage-style tremolo bridge. The headstock was also decorated with a Fender decal, which confused many people into thinking that this was an original Fender.

Mark used this guitar occasionally during the Brothers in Arms tour in 1985/86, and kept using it during the On Every Street tour in the 90s. It was also seen a few times on his more recent solo tours.