A Super Rare "Sonic Blue" Slab-Board Telecaster

This super rare "Sonic Blue" slab-board Telecaster weighs just 7.20 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid ash body, one-piece maple neck with a medium profile, and slab rosewood fretboard with 21 frets and clay dot position markers. Headstock with Fender "spaghetti" logo in silver with black trim and "Telecaster" in black beneath it. Single "butterfly" string tree with no spacer. Individual single-line Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons. Four-bolt neck plate with serial number ("38274") between the top two screws. One plain metal-cover pickup at neck with an output of 6.78k and one black six-polepiece pickup angled in bridgeplate with an output of 6.68k. Three-layer white/black/white plastic pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way pickup selector switch, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. Chrome knobs with gently curved tops and knurled sides. Fender combined bridge/tailpiece with the original chrome "ashtray" bridge cover. The pots are dated "137 847" (CTS November 1958). There is some fine body checking and a small area (approximately 3/4 x 5/8 inch) on the back of the guitar where the blue finish is off and the primer is showing through, a few areas of edgewear, including a few dings on the edges, some slight varnish wear to the back of the neck, and a small area of varnish loss by the low "E" tuner (probably where a cigarette rested). There is very little fretwear to the original frets. Overall, this very rare guitar is in good solid excellent plus (8.75) condition. Housed in its original Fender "Tweed" hardshell case with orange plush lining (8.75).

The history of this guitar (although listed in Werners List [1997] p.18, "38274 Tele Sonic," as a 1959) is a little more intriguing than at first meets the eye. After much research and very careful examination of each and every component, we must conclude that this is in fact a 1959 guitar that went back to the factory somewhere between late 1962 and 1964 and was rebodied. The neck and all of the electronics and hardware are 1959 -- the pickguard, controls, pots, bridge pickups -- BUT the body itself is either late 1962, 1963, or early 1964. There is absolutely no question that this is an original Sonic Blue Telecaster body with a wonderful early 1959 slab-board neck. The Sonic Blue finish is the only paintwork that has ever been on this body.

With the pickguard removed, examination under ultraviolet light revealed that at one time the bridge pickup cavity had been enlarged and then expertly refilled and refinished (we cannot explain why). This is the only one small area on the guitar where the original Sonic Blue finish has been touched.

1959 was a turning pointing in the early history of Telecaster guitars. It was the year when the original one-piece maple neck was (temporarily) discontinued and replaced by a more conventional two-piece neck with a separate rosewood fretboard. The Jazzmaster, introduced at the July 1958 NAMM show, was the first Fender electric offered with a rosewood fretboard. In 1959 it was decided to shift all guitars to rosewood-capped necks. Such a radical evolution was probably brought about by problems of wear on the clear-lacquered maple necks as well as the positive reaction of dealers vis-à-vis the new Jazzmaster neck. At any rate, by the summer of 1959, all Telecaster guitars were produced with rosewood-capped necks. This earliest variant of the rosewood cap, which lasted until 1962, is milled flat on the neck, hence its usual slab board nickname because of a thicker layer of rosewood. The success of the Telecaster needs no explanation, with players from Muddy Waters to Bruce Springsteen, Steve Cropper to Keith Richards, Eric Clapton to David Rumour, and so many others, including one of my favorite players of all time, the legendary Mickey Green of Johnny Kid and The Pirates.