Vintage Fender Telecaster- The Little Crude Wooden Guitar that Could
In todays vintage guitar collections the vintage Fender Telecaster happens to be one of the most sought after vintage guitars. Reason being that it was the first major solid bodied electric guitar to be produced. Sure there were a lot of prototypes of the electric guitar since the 20’s, but the Fender Telecaster was the one that set the standard in solid bodied electric guitars.
It took 17 years of set backs and experimentation to create the better known as “Tele”. The true original name of the Telecaster was the Esquire. The Esquire was first distributed in 1950, its life span , however, would be a short one. Only around 50 of these guitars were ever made and they were recalled due to a manufacturing error. Leo was not discourage though.
He updated the guitars features and re-released it later that year and renamed it the Fender Broadcaster. Once again luck would not be on Leo’s side and the Gretsch Company would complain Leo violating their copy righted “Broadkaster” line of drums.
This didn’t bother Leo and with third times a charm renamed his guitar the Fender Telecaster. Now you may be wondering why the “Telecaster” or “Tele”, well he named his guitar after the growing popular new medium the television. The guitar not only set new standards, but it started a new wave of music. The unpopular solid bodied electric guitar was now popular. Leo had changed music history.
The Fender Telecaster for its time had remarkable craftsmanship and was an ease to fix when broken. The components were not constructed individually like most of the guitars of the time, but were mass manufactured. Most would thing that this would decrease the performance of the guitar, but this wasn’t the case. The Telecaster was sawed and routed from slabs, not hand-carved, the necks were bolted on not glued, and the fretboards were imbedded not separate from the neck. Theses are just a few examples of many at the simplicity of production and repair…
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