The Last of The Great Fifties Esquires

This fifty-one-year-old Blond beauty weighs just 6.90 lbs. and has a nut width of over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid ash body and fretted maple neck with 21 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. The tuning keys are stamped "23567766/PAT. APPLD." on the bottom base. The neck is dated in pencil "?-55". Four-bolt neck plate with serial number ("8315") between the top two screws. White single-layer ABS (.060 inches thick) pickguard with five screws. On the face of the body, underneath the pickguard is "Esq" in black pencil; in the bridge pickup cavity is "Esq" in blue pencil, and in the (unused neck pickup) cavity is a large"X" in blue pencil. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way "CRL 1452" "blender" switch and original Daka-Ware black plastic "Top-Hat" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. The potentiometers are stamped "304 515" (Stackpole April 1955) and the three capacitors between the switch and the volume control are stamped "IMFD 150 VDC." Shorter chrome knobs with more pronounced domes and knurled sides. One black six-polepiece "copper-coated metal plate bottom" pickup with flush polepieces (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 5.78k. Telecaster combined bridge/tailpiece with three, quarter inch steel, smooth saddles, the screws angled at 45 degrees.

This guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. There is some good old-fashioned light playing wear on the figured maple fretboard and lightly flamed neck. a tiny bit of belt buckle scarring on the back, and a small amount of playing wear, mainly on the edges, where the guitar has rubbed against the player's body. The Blond has mellowed to a rich, creamy color. The lovely grain of the ash body shows very well through the finish, and this fifty-one-year-old gem is quite simply one of the best transitional "white guard" Esquire's that we have ever seen! When we removed the neck plate to see the pencil neck date and the pencil neck-pocket date, it became apparent to us that this guitar had never been taken apart before. The neck fits oh-so snugly in the neck pocket and so we decided to leave it that way and replace the neck plate and screws… we can see "-55" in pencil on the end of the neck with the pickguard removed and we would accurately guess the first number to be anywhere from a "1" to a "4" (January - April).

Housed in a near mint original 1957 Fender Tweed side-pocket "Koylon" hardshell case with red plush lining and the original "Fender" logo thick foil sticker on the top (9.25). Complete with the original "ash-tray" bridge cover, brown leather strap, and even the original patch cord.

This guitar is one of the last of the great early fifties Esquire's… it has all the cosmetic changes that were made around late '54 and early '55 such as the the change of color from "butterscotch" to "blond", the change of pickguard from "black" to "white" and the change of bridge saddles from 3/16" brass with flat bottoms to 1/4" steel… BUT the bridge pickup on this one is still the great, wonderful, marvelous, superb, fantastic "flat-pole" pickup that had been used since the Esquire's and the Telecasters inception… by late 1955 this was gone forever… replaced by a new modified re-designed "staggered-pole" bridge pickup that would change the Esquire and the Telecaster sound forever.

"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).

"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 [and Esquire] 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...Beyond these cosmetic features, a more dramatic evolution took place in 1955. The bridge pickup was modified to incorporate staggered pole pieces in place of the flush level-poles of the original design...Finally, the round clubby neck of the post-1950 guitars evolved into pronounced 'V' feel by 1955 and until early 1958 'boat necks' were the rule on most Fender instruments...At the end of 1956, Telecaster [and Esquire] guitars no longer looked or even sounded exactly the same as the 1951 models...In the course of 1958, necks gradually changed for a flatter cross section" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 16).

"The earliest necks made in 1950 (e.g. Broadcaster) have a pronounced V-shape and their thickness is usually close to one inch. If one takes the 1st and 12th fret as a reference for the cross-section, .95" and 1.00" would be a good average indication for the period. By early 1951, necks became more rounded and less 'Veed' with slight variations in thickness, e.g. .90" and 1.00" on a '52 Telly, but overall kept a similar cross-section until the mid-50's." (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 53).