A Fine Original '52 Telecaster in it's Original “Thermometer” Case

This fifty-six year-old Butterscotch Blond beauty weighs just 7.60 lbs. and has a nut width of 1 5/8 inches inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid ash body and a wonderful medium-to-thick profile fretted maple neck with 21 frets and black dot position markers. Single "round" string tree. Headstock decal with "Fender" spaghetti logo in silver and "Telecaster" in black below it. Individual "no-name" Kluson Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons and slot-head screws. The tuning keys are stamped "235677/PAT. APPLD" on the bottom base. One plain metal-cover "black-bottom" pickup with slot-head adjusting screws (at neck) with an output of 6.47k, and one black six-polepiece "copper-coated metal plate bottom" pickup with flush polepieces (angled in bridgeplate) with an output of 7.40k. Single-ply black Bakelite pickguard with five (slot-head) screws. Two controls (one volume, one blender) plus three-way "tone" switch (with slot-head screws) and original "patent number" black plastic "barrel-like" tip, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard. Shorter chrome knobs with more pronounced domes and heavy knurled sides. Telecaster combined bridge/tailpiece with three (flat-ground on bottom) brass saddles and slot-head intonation adjustment screws. Serial number ("3414") on the bridge plate beneath the words "FENDER/PAT. PEND." The neck is dated in pencil "TG 5-31-52," and the body neck-pocket is dated in pencil "Tadeo 5-28-52." The solder joints are covering the stamping on the both of the potentiometers, but nothing has ever been touched in this guitar. The three-way switch is stamped "CRL 1452." This guitar is in remarkably fine condition. There are a couple of tiny marks on the front of the guitar (near the three-way switch), a few insignificant "dings" on the top, a small amount of wear to the fretboard and the frets, and a tiny bit of belt buckle scarring on the back ( with two small areas of surface loss in the center and another small area of surface loss about the size of a small fingernail), and a small amount of playing wear, mainly on the edges, where the guitar has rubbed against the player's body. The Butterscotch has mellowed to a rich, creamy color. The lovely grain of the ash body shows very well through the Blond finish and this fifty-six-year-old gem is quite simply one of the best 1952 Telecasters that we have ever seen. Housed in its original "thermometer" case with chocolate brown plush lining. Complete with its original "ashtray" bridge cover.

"Both the Telecaster and the Esquire kept their basic 1951 appointments until the mid-50s. In retrospect, their most striking features -- at least cosmetically speaking -- are a typical yellowed blonde finish (a.k.a. 'butterscotch' finish) and a black pickguard, hence the often cited notion of early 'black guard' Tellies. The combination of the two actually gives a distinct look to the early 50s models, which are otherwise considered by many as the ultimate classic Telecaster guitar because of their tone...Besides its peculiar hue, the original blonde finish nicely showcases the ash body heavy grain pattern that later whiter finishes would subdue...[1954] marks the beginning of a number of changes in the appointments of Telecaster guitars. By Fall, the bakelite black guard was replaced by a single ply white trim and a few months later steel superseded brass for the bridge saddles. FENDER also changed the finishing process of the blonde finish...The typical 'butterscotch' colour gave way to a creamier shade which would soon evolve into a lighter off-white finish. Finally, 1954 is also the year when the serial number was removed from the bridge plate to be stamped on the neck anchor plate...(A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 16).

"Leo Fender's new solidbody was the instrument that we know now as the Fender Telecaster, effectively the world's first commercially successful solidbody electric guitar...The guitar was originally named the Fender Esquire and then the Fender Broadcaster, and it first went into production in 1950. It was a simple, effective instrument. It had a basic, single-cutaway, solid slab of ash for a body, with a screwed-on maple neck. Everything was geared to easy production. It had a slanted pickup mounted into a steel bridge-plate carrying three adjustable bridge-saddles, and the body was finished in a yellowish color known as blond. It was unadorned and like nothing else. It was ahead of its time (Tony Bacon, 50 Years of Fender, p. 10).