1973 Fender Telecaster, Blonde

Stunning early ‘70s Blonde Telecaster with Rosewood board. An excellent, original example with Ash body in transparent Blonde finish. Maple neck with Rosewood fingerboard and pearl dot inlays, two Fender Telecaster pickups with original Stackpole pots, chrome hardware including Fender ‘F’ plate tuners, bridge assembly, control plate and bridge cover.

The original transparent Blonde finish is in excellent condition showing only a small amount of general wear, a small patch by the forearm position and a few edge bumps by the strap button. The Ash body (stamped Frank 180 in the neck pocket) has an unusually pronounced and attractive grain pattern set off by the transparent blonde finish. There is a small area of lacquer discolouration by the strap button that could have been caused by a strap or stand. The Rosewood fingerboard is dark and reminiscent of the Rosewood used by Fender in the early ‘60s. The original nut had cracked when the guitar came in to us, our tech has fitted a new replacement and the guitar plays well with a nice low action on the original frets. The original nut has been retained. The 2 Patent Telecaster decal is crisp and under the lacquer, the headstock face has darkened with age adding to the late fifties early sixties aesthetic. Two string trees are used on Telecasters from ’72 and are correct. The neck stamp is present but not the clearest, a legible 3 denotes a production year of 73.

The electronics comprise of two Stackpole potentiometer with the matching date code 304V7332 with yellow ceramic capacitors. The original pickups have a mixture of yellow, black and white poly coated lead wires with all solder joints appearing unbroken.

Chrome hardware is bright and generally free from pitting. The neck plate is stamped with the serial number 360533, this sits within the given range for ’72/’73. The Fender ‘F’ tuners move freely and work without issue.

Plugged in the guitar has a nice rounded brightness to the bridge pickup with none of the ice pick treble that ‘70s Telecasters can have. The neck pickup is warm with good definition. The volume and tone controls have a good taper cleaning up an overdriven tone well with little loss of treble.

An excellent example and one of our favourite early seventies Teles we’ve had in, the guitar weighs in at 8.5lbs and comes with a non-Fender period hard case.