A friend of mine recently bought a really cool late-’50s Fender Stratocaster. The guitar had been refinished, and my buddy wanted a 5-way switch installed along with a blender circuit. It was a super-easy mod job, and his guitar now sounds excellent with the new mods. I was rather taken aback by the playability of the guitar, though; it had virtually no frets. The state of the fretboard on that guitar made me really think: Someone struggled with this guitar, perhaps for years, trying to play it with frets that were lower than what you’d find on an original vintage Les Paul Custom—a k a, “the Fretless Wonder.” The frets were down to the wood in most places, and I scratched my head and wondered, “Why would someone want to do this to themselves?” Luckily, my friend was taking the guitar straight to a luthier to have the frets replaced.