One of the Earliest "Keith" Telecaster Custom Guitars in a Custom Color

This "Custom" weighs 8.00 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, maple neck and maple fretboard with 21 jumbo frets and black dot position markers. Headstock decal with "Fender" logo in black with gold trim and "TELECASTER CUSTOM" in black beside it. Two "butterfly" string trees. Fender one-piece die-cast Deluxe Schaller tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Three-bolt neck plate with the serial number ("382796") between the top two screws, the large Fender backward "F" beneath the serial number, and "FENDER MICRO-NECK-ADJUST PAT. 3550496" around the lower edge. One Fender humbucking pickup in the neck position with a huge output of 10.69k and and one black six-polepiece pickup (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 6.39k. Three-layer (black/white/black) plastic pickguard of an elongated shape covering a fair amount of the body face. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on the lower treble side of the pickguard plus three-way selector switch on the upper bass side of the pickguard. "Gibson-style" black plastic ribbed-sided conical-shaped "Witch Hat" knobs with white markings and metal tops. Fender combined tailpiece and bridge with original chrome cover. The pot codes are: "137 7218", "137 7239" and "304 7248" The neck is stamped "3 NOV 72B". This fine example is in totally original and near mint (9.25) condition. Housed in the original Fender black hardshell case with the Fender logo on it and with dark orange plush lining (9.25).

"In mid-1972, FENDER came up with a more extensive redesign and introduced a new version of the TELECASTER CUSOM equipped with one humbucker in the neck position. Even though it retained the Custom name, the guitar was indeed a totally new instrument having little in common with it's forerunner apart from the overall shape and the single coil bridge pickup, hence a change in it's product number from 11-1400 to 11-0700. By and large, the Custom type II was intended as a hybrid combining the best of both worlds. Earlier on, players like Mike BLOOMFIELD or Albert LEE has already stuck a humbucking pickup in the forward position of their Telecaster and FENDER simply standardized the process with the new 1972 Custom. Otherwise, the guitar was fitted with a Tilt Neck and sported an elongated black pickguard with 4 controls and a 3-way toggle switch. The earliest production models were released with the original Telecaster bridge, but an upgraded six-piece design was soon installed for an improved intonation" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 26). The original price in January 1973 was $315.00.

"The pickup found on the Deluxe and the second generation of Thinline and Custom models was designed by former Gibson engineer Seth Lover. His Fender brainchild features two coils, each wound with 5000 turns of 42 gauge wire and a resistance of 5300 Ohms +/- 400 Ohms (i.e. a nominal resistance of 10.6k for both coils together). Whilst adopting the humbucking mode for FENDER, Seth Lover was keen to retain a brighter sound and a higher resonant peak frequency than a Gibson pickup...The 70s Fender humbucker is fitted with 12 threaded magnets but, once the metal cover is soldered, only 6 -- split in two offset rows -- are fully adjustable in height from the top. It remained in production between 1971 and early 1981 and disappeared from the catalogue with the discontinuation of the Deluxe and Custom models" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 62).