When I think of The Rolling Stones and Keith Richards in particular-I think of this guitar: The Fender Telecaster Custom in Black finish. Synonymous with KEEF, it has appeared non-stop on-stage with him since 1975 and also like KEEF-it has weathered time seemingly with some sort of magic...This vintage piece is a 1974 model year. It was produced at the original Fender factory in Fullerton California, U.S.A. It has factory ink production stamps and employee ink inspection stamps throughout for excellent provenance. The guitar has had a refret and the pickups, switch and bridge are Fender U.S.A. Reissue items. Other than that, it is all-original, including the highly desirable Black finish! The guitar has been professionally set up and it is ready to go-it needs nothing.
The body is the familiar Telecaster silhouette with slab-edge design. The strings load through the body for maximum sustain and resonance. The original finish has handling evidence all over the front, sides and back yet remarkably; it still retains a nice deep gloss-see photos. The stage-warrior vintage vibe is everywhere on this guitar-no one will ever mistake it for a vintage reissue! The pickguard is nice and flat with no breaks. The neck joint is nice and clean and the neck slot features a perfect paint stick shadow, circle ink inspection stamp and the employee "FRANK" in stamp along with a blue marker batch number code-see photos...
The neck itself is smooth and straight. It feels really nice. The factory ink stamp on the end of the neck reads "07033833" 07: Telecaster Custom 03: maple fingerboard 38: 38th week of the year 3: 1973 3: day of week, Wednesday...That means that this neck was made on Wednesday September 19th 1973. The neck has a nice vintage Medium C-shaped profile. The neck has a width of 1.62" wide at the nut and measures .850" deep at the 1st fret and .908" deep at the 12th fret. The original F-key tuners all function smoothly and the guitar stays in tune excellent. The headstock and logo display really nicely with a perfect touch of line checking in the original nitrocellulose finish. The maple fingerboard is clean and the position markers are nice. The frets have been replaced with same sized-factory width units and they are in excellent condition, near new-see photos. The actin is set low fro a fast and easy playing experience. The string height measures .010" at the 1st fret and .045" at the 12th fret. It plays lights out up and down the fingerboard and I see to be stuck playing the intro to "Brown Sugar" over and over again because I can't help it. The action can be easily raised if you prefer a higher action-I like it low personally.
The pickups sound amazing. They are both Fender U.S.A. reissue units wound to vintage specs. They both really have a nice "alive" hot drive to them and sound better the more you crank your amp...The original tone capacitors and potentiometers are all present-so the pickups sound just like the vintage units...maybe even better, it certainly has THE Tone! You can instantly hear the Fender "bell" tone and brilliance you'd expect Plus it has the quintessential tele spank and twang. Lots of tonal combinations available...The wide range neck pickup has a full tone unlike anything else-it's like a Gibson PAF pickup on steroids without the muddy low end. The volume balance is really nice on this one. The bridge pickup measures 6.58 ohms and the neck pickup measures 7.98 ohms. The original potentiometers all work smoothly and quietly. They are all 1-Meg units and a blend of Stackpole 304 & CTS 137 pieces. They date to 49th week of 1973, 37th week of 1973 and the 6th week of 1974. The bridge and saddles are nice and clean, and all of the height adjusters function as well as the intonation adjustments. The bridge cover fits very well and stays in place.
The guitar is lots of fun to play-you can tell right away that it is an awesome player just by the resonance. It weighs 9.04 lbs. so if you choose to do a KEEF and attack a heckling fan on stage just as he did in 1981-you are going to inflict some damage. (be careful-actually, don't do that)
An era-correct fender Moulded hard case is included for protection. One latch is missing but the other 2 hold the lid in place just fine. Don't snooze on this guitar-it is awesome in so many ways. It is a really good deal-I can't believe that new Fender custom shop versions of this guitar cost $5500...why not just buy the REAL DEAL?
You know what to do...Start Me UP!
