One of the Last of the Original Black Guard Telecasters

1954 Fender Telecaster

This featherwight sixty-year-old Butterscotch Blond beauty weighs just 7.20 lbs. Solid ash body and fretted maple neck with a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Tenty-one original medium frets and black dot position markers. Single "round" string tree. Headstock decal with "Fender" spaghetti logo in silver with black trim and "Telecaster" in black below it. Individual "no-name" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons (each one stamped on the underside "2356766/PAT. Appld.") One plain metal-cover "black-bottom" pickup with slot-head adjusting screws (at neck) with an output of 7.72k, and one black six-polepiece "copper-coated metal plate bottom" pickup with flush polepieces (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 6.17k. 'Fiberous' black bakelite pickguard with five screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way pickup selector switch and original "patent number" black plastic "barrel-like" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. Shorter chrome knobs with more pronounced domes and heavy knurled sides. Telecaster combined bridge/tailpiece with three steel saddles angled at 45%. Serial number "4202" on the bridge plate beneath the words "FENDER/PAT. PEND." The neck is dated in pencil "T.G. 9-54" and the body neck-pocket is dated in blue pencil "#1 9/54" The potentiometers are stamped "304 ---" (the date numbers are obscured by solder) and the three-way switch is stamped "CRL 1452." and has three patent-numbers. There is a very small amount of playing wear on the fretboard which is confined to the first five frets (far less than is usually seen). The Butterscotch has mellowed to a rich, creamy color. The lovely grain of the ash body shows very well through the Blond finish. There is a 2 1/2 scratch on the bass-side of the back of the body, some light playing (edge) wear and a few small indentations/surface chips and marks but overall this sixty-year-old gem is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition and is quite simply one of the nicest "black-guard" Telecasters that we have ever seen. Housed in the original Fender 'Tweed' three-latch 'center pocket' rectangular hardshell case with tan leather ends and red plush lining (8.75).

"Both the Telecaster and the Esquire kept their basic 1951 appointments until the mid-50s. In retrospect, their most striking features -- at least cosmetically speaking -- are a typical yellowed blonde finish (a.k.a. 'butterscotch' finish) and a black pickguard, hence the often cited notion of early 'black guard' Tellies. The combination of the two actually gives a distinct look to the early 50s models, which are otherwise considered by many as the ultimate classic Telecaster guitar because of their tone... Besides its peculiar hue, the original blonde finish nicely showcases the ash body heavy grain pattern that later whiter finishes would subdue... [1954] marks the beginning of a number of changes in the appointments of Telecaster guitars. By Fall, the bakelite black guard was replaced by a single ply white trim and a few months later steel superseded brass for the bridge saddles. FENDER also changed the finishing process of the blonde finish... The typical 'butterscotch' colour gave way to a creamier shade which would soon evolve into a lighter off-white finish. Finally, 1954 is also the year when the serial number was removed from the bridge plate to be stamped on the neck anchor plate... (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 16).

"Leo Fender's new solidbody was the instrument that we know now as the Fender Telecaster, effectively the world's first commercially successful solidbody electric guitar... The guitar was originally named the Fender Esquire and then the Fender Broadcaster, and it first went into production in 1950. It was a simple, effective instrument. It had a basic, single-cutaway, solid slab of ash for a body, with a screwed-on maple neck. Everything was geared to easy production. It had a slanted pickup mounted into a steel bridge-plate carrying three adjustable bridge-saddles, and the body was finished in a yellowish color known as blond. It was unadorned and like nothing else. It was ahead of its time (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 10).