Which Fender Stratocaster should I buy?

Mark Knopfler is the son of a Jewish architect whose communist sympathies forced him to flee the fascist regime in his native Hungary. When Mark was about nine years old, the family moved to Newcastle upon Tyne in the North-East of England. There, he and his younger brother David (also a musician) attended Gosforth Grammar School. He was inspired by his uncle Kingsley's harmonica and boogie-woogie piano playing. Later, in his teens, he wished to buy the expensive flamingo-pink Fender Stratocaster just like Hank Marvin's, but had to settle for a £50 twin pickup Höfner Super Solid. Like many other schoolboys of the 1960s, he served an early apprenticeship by forming and joining anonymous schoolboy bands and listening to guitarists such as Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, Jimi Hendrix, Django Reinhardt and James Burton. At sixteen he made a local TV appearance as half of a harmony duo along with school-friend Sue Hercombe.