Floats like a Butterfly - Stings like a Bee…

This forty-nine-year-old Blond beauty weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a huge 'V' neck with a nice fat nut width of just under1 11/16 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 butterfly string tree. Headstock decal with "Fender" spaghetti logo in silver with black trim and "Telecaster" in black below it. Individual "single-line" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons. The tuning keys are stamped "235677/PAT. APPLD." on the bottom base. One plain metal-cover "black-bottom" pickup with slot-head adjusting screws (at neck) with an output of 6.66k, and one black six-polepiece "copper-coated metal plate bottom" pickup with staggered polepieces (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 5.92k. White single-layer ABS (.060 inches thick) pickguard with six screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way "CRL 1452" switch and original Daka-Ware black plastic "Top-Hat" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. Shorter chrome knobs with flat domes and knurled sides. Telecaster combined bridge/tailpiece with three, quarter inch steel, smooth saddles. Four-bolt neck plate with serial number ("-18818") between the top two screws. The neck is dated in pencil "3-57". The bridge pickup cavity is dated in pencil "5-57". The potentiometers are stamped "304 704" (Stackpole January 1957), the three-way switch is stamped "CRL 1452".

This guitar is in excellent plus (8.75) condition. There is some good old-fashioned playing wear on the maple fretboard. plenty of belt buckle scarring on the back, and a fair amount of playing wear, mainly on the edges. The Blond has mellowed to a rich, creamy color. The lovely grain of the ash body shows very well through the finish, and this forty-nine-year-old gem is quite simply one of the best sounding "white guard" Telecasters that we have handled! Housed in the original Fender tweed hardshell case with light red plush lining (8.75).

This guitar is one of the great '57 Telecasters with that oh so perfect 'V' neck…

"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 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 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).