The Most Beautiful 'Franken-Tele'

1964 Fender Telecaster

This 12 3/4-inch, wide, 1 5/8 thick Telecaster weighs just 6.50 lbs. and has a solid ash body. Original early 1959 maple neck with a slab-board "Brazilian' rosewood fretboard with 21 original frets and clay dot position markers. The neck has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Original "spaghetti" logo in silver outlined in black, with "Telecaster" in black beneath. Single butterfly string tree with 'small' nylon spacer. Individual Kluson deluxe "double-line" tuners with oval metal buttons. The end of the neck is not dated as is quite common with early 1959 examples. Four-bolt neckplate with serial number between the top two screws. One plain metal-cover 'black-bottom' pickup at neck with an output of 6.28k, and one black 'grey-bottom' six-polepiece pickup angled in bridgeplate with an output of 6.82k (stamped on the underside in yellow "APR 22 1964". Three-layer white over balck plastic pickguard with eight screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way selector switch with "top-hat" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. The potentiometers are stamped "137 6416" (CTS April 1964). Chrome knobs with flat tops and knurled sides. Fender combined tailpiece and bridge. There is some wear to the original frets - but they certainly have plenty of life left in them. There is some light playing wear to the varnish on both sides of the neck between the first and seventh frets. There is a small area of surface loss (from a cigarette burn?) to the face of the headstock by the low E tuner. Housed in an early 1970s Fender three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with red plush lining (9.00).