One of the Earliest Versions of Fender's Thinline Telecaster

A fabulous example of one of the earliest versions of Fender's hollow body thinline Telecaster, with serial number "283019." Weighs just 6.60 lbs. With a "B" neck nut width of 1 5/8 inches and scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Hollow ash body and one-piece fretted maple neck with 21 frets and black dot position markers. Individual Fender "F" tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Two hot single-coil pickups (one plain metal-cover pickup with visible height-adjustment screws at neck and one black six-polepiece pickup angled in bridgeplate) with outputs of 6.77k and 5.97k. Original pearloid ("mother-of-toilet seat") over black and white plastic pickguard. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. Chrome knobs with flat tops and knurled sides. Side-mounted jack socket. Combined Telecaster three-saddle bridge/tailpiece. This guitar is in excellent plus condition, with some very minimal belt buckle scarring on the back, a tiny mark on the top edge, some very minor discoloration on the top (at one time there must have been adhesive letters with the name 'GENE' , but the actual surface is unmarked), and some slight yellowing to the pearloid ("mother-of-toilet-seat") pickguard. The pots are dated "1376634" ("137"=CTS pots and "6634"=the 34th week of 1966) and the bridge pickup is the light-grey bottom type used between 1965 and 1969 and has 73 11 4 311 stamped on the bottom. The end of the neck is stamped in green "312003B", an undecipherable mark, which as is very often the case with late sixties Fenders. According to Werner's List, the serial number "283107" was used on a September 1968 Stratocaster… the serial number "283109" of this guitar is just two away… Housed in a New Fender-style 'tweed' case with maroon plush lining (9.50).

"Introduced in 1968, this model was an attempt by Fender to reduce the weight of the solid Telecaster by hollowing out sections of the body -- and the guitar even included a token f-hole as a visual clue to its semi-solid status. The Thinline at first retained the standard Tele pickup layout, but with a restyled pickguard" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 47).

The Telecaster Thinline was "basically a Telecaster body with pockets hollowed-out from the rear, including a bigger one opening into the top via an 'f' hole. With the exception of the pickguard shape modified to accomodate [sic] the new semi-acoustic design, the Thinline was otherwise identical to a regular '68 Telecaster in terms of neck, electronics and hardware. But its body was about half the weight of a regular Telecaster. The new variant was first listed in July 1968 for $319.50…To convey the idea of a lighter, almost acoustic guitar, the Thinline was at first released in only natural ash and mahogany finishes with a 2-piece maple neck…By 1969, it also became available with a 3-tone sunburst finish and an optional rosewood-capped neck" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 23).