Super Rare Late '67 Sunburst Custom Telecaster - MINT!!!

1967 Fender Telecaster Custom

This super rare, fifty-two year-old 'three-tone sunburst' Telecaster Custom weighs just 7.80 lbs. and has a solid alder body, single-bound on the top and the back. Maple neck with a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a wonderful medium-to-thick profile. Veneer rosewood fretboard with 21 original medium frets and pearl dot  position markers. Single "butterfly" string tree. Headstock with CBS 'black' logo with "Fender" in black with gold trim, "Telecaster" in black, and two patent numbers "2,573,254" and "3,143,028" beneath. Individual Fender "F" tuners with octagonal metal buttons. The neck is stamped  "3 NOV 67B" and the bottom of the neck and the neck cavity are stamped in black "B 749". The neck cavity is also stamped "G 752" in black. Four-bolt neck plate with large Fender backward "F" logo and with serial number "208725" stamped between the top two screws. One plain metal-cover pickup (at neck) with an output of 6.65k and one black six-polepiece pickup with staggered polepieces (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 3.19k. The potentiometers are stamped "137 6631 (CTS August 1966). Three-layer white over black plastic pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone)  plus three-way pickup selector switch with "top-hat" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. Chrome knobs with flat tops and knurled sides. Telecaster combined bridge/tailpiece with three 'threaded' steel saddles. Under the pickguard, blind-stamped onto the body just by the small wiring channel, are three half-inch letters (either "666" or "999"). These 'stamps' usually signify that the guitar has been back to the factory for some work - but the whole guitar is 100% original and untouched - so these numbers are a complete mystery to us. The guitar is in mint (9.50) condition with barely any wear whatsoever to the original frets and fretboard. There is the bare minimum of light checking on the face of the headstock - otherwise dead mint. Most probably the finest example on the planet. Complete with the original bridge cover, Fender black leather guitar strap and a later 'coiled' lead. Also included is the original instruction manual with matching serial number, the original Fender 'square' hang-tag, an original 40 page, 1966-67 Fender color catalog, an original June 1967 eight-page Fender price list (showing the Telecaster Custom @ $244.50 + $57.50 for the case). Housed in its original Fender three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with reddish orange plush lining and black leather ends (9.50).

"In the course of 1968, probably on standardisation grounds, the regular Telecaster's decal with the CBS black logo and 2 patent numbers, but without and "Custom" mention, was gradually applied." (A.R. Duchossoir. The Fender Telecaster, p. 48).

We were surprised by the 3.19k reading on the bridge pickup - we contacted our friend Terry Mueller who after studying all the detailed photographs wrote "As long as the pickup sounds normal when compared to a similar pickup at the same volume then so be it. IMO, 1967 Teles have an especially great sound & yours is an especially fine example. Fender pickup readings are all over the place."

"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).

"The June 1959 NAMM convention held in New York saw the debut of the TELECASTER and ESQUIRE CUSTOM. Intended as a deluxe version of the regular models, they were characterized by what Fender called 'the custom treatment of the body,' i.e. a sunburst finish with a contrasting white binding and a triple-ply white pickguard. Otherwise, with the exception of an alder body, their basic appointments were identical to the mid-59 'standard' Telecaster and Esquire models" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, pp. 19-20).