The First Telecaster with an Offset Contour Body

This "Deluxe" weighs 9.20 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, maple neck with a Stratocaster-style headstock, and a maple fretboard with 21 jumbo frets and black dot position markers. Headstock decal with "Fender" logo in black with gold trim and "TELECASTER DELUXE" 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 ("657344") 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. Two Fender humbucking pickups with balanced outputs of 10.38k and 10.39k. 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. Stratocaster-style six-piece combined bridge and tailpiece. Both pickups are dated: "19 07 75." The pot codes are: "137 74 46." The neck is undated, but has the circular green "seal" stamp. This fine example is in totally original and near mint (9.25) condition, with only a minuscule mark on the back of the headstock around the 1st fret. Housed in the original Fender black hardshell case with the Fender logo on it and with dark orange plush lining (8.75). The case has the word "LEGACY" stencilled on in white. Presumably, the guitar was at one time owned by Steve Bentz of the Nashville band "Paula Jo Taylor and Legacy."

"To foster FENDER's quest for a new clientele, a third variant with humbuckers made its debut in January 1973 as the TELECASTER DELUXE. Marketed then as the higher grade model in the Telecaster family, the Deluxe was in many respects a composite design blending appointments from other Fender guitars. It thus featured a Strat-style Tilt Neck (with a larger peghead) and 6-piece bridge, also available with optional tremolo action (discontinued after 1974). The guitar retained the overall Telecaster shape but the back of the body was contoured à la Stratocaster. Electronically, it sported two humbuckers like the revamped Thinline, mounted on a black pickguard assembly similar to the Custom, with four controls and a 3-way toggle switch. In short, the TELECASTER DELUXE was basically a 'Stratocasterized Telly with humbuckers.' Like the Thinline II it was exclusively available with a Maple Neck, whilst the Custom could be ordered with either a rosewood board or or [sic] Maple Neck" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 26). The original price in March 1974 was $410.00.

"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).