Carl Verheyen's 'Jet Black' 1971 Fender Telecaster Thinline

1971 Fender Telecaster Thinline

This amazing custom color, lightweight guitar weighs just 5.40 lbs. and has a hollow mahogany body with single 'f' sound hole on bass side of top. One-piece maple neck with a nut width of jus tunder 1 5/8 inches, a scale length of 25 1/2 inches and a wonderful medium-to-thick profile. Maple fretboard with 21 original medium frets and black dot position markers. Headstock decal with "Fender" logo in black with gold trim, two patent numbers in black below it "Pat. 2,573,254  3,143,028", and "Telecaster" in bold black lettering beside it. Single "butterfly" string tree. Individual Fender "F" closed-back tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Four-bolt neck plate with large Fender "F" logo and serial number "311388" between the top two screws. Two hot pickups (single-coil neck pickup encased in metal shell and single-coil staggered pole bridge pickup) with outputs of 6.64k and 5.60k. Original "pearloid" ("mother-of-toilet-seat") over white and black plastic pickguard with twelve screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus three-way selector switch, all on pickguard. Chrome knobs with flat tops and knurled sides. Combination Telecaster three-saddle bridge/tailpiece, with "FENDER/PAT.NO./DES.164227/2,573,254" on the base plate. The neck is stamped "3 MAY 71B" on the end, and the neck pocket has "Chambers" stamped in black. The pots are dated "137 6634" (CTS August 1966). Housed in its original Fender three-latch, rectangular black hardshell case with reddish orange plush lining (9.00). There are two areas of smooth sleeve wear on the top edge and top of the body. There are two small 'chips' - one on the edge of the bass horn and the other on the top of the treble horn. The frets and fretboard show litttle signs of wear. This is a super light, super playing, super sounding guitar with a 'Star' history. Carl had owned this guitar since 1990. A great opportunity to own a custom Color Thinline Tele with a very nice provenance.

Over the years we have handled fifteen Telecaster Thinline's… the weight on fourteen of them was 6.40 - 7.60 pounds. This guitar is by far the lightest one we have ever seen - it weighs just 5.40 pounds.

In late 1968, Fender introduced the Telecaster Thinline. Much like Gibson's 335, the Thinline has a solid center with hollow "wings" and a single "F" hole. Apparently Fender’s supply of lightweight ash was drying up. Fender looked for ways to use readily available, but heavier grades of ash for the Telecaster. Their solution was to hollow out portions of the body to reduce weight. The body was routed from the back on each side of pickup assembly creating hollow "wings". A thin back panel was then glued on the back. A new style pearloid pickguard was used too. When it was introduced in late 1968, the Telecaster Thinline was offered with either a natural finished ash or mahogany body. In 1969, a three tone sunburst finish was also offered as an option. The January 1971 Fender price list has the Tele Thinline priced at $375 and an additional $65 for the case. Custom colors as on our guitar were priced at a small premium. Finally in late-1971, the Telecaster Thinline was outfitted with a pair of Fender’s new humbucking pickups, a three-bolt neck and a 'bullet' truss rod adjustment on the headstock. 
After that it remained unchanged in the Fender line until it was discontinued in 1980.

"Introduced in 1968, this model was an attempt by Fender to reduce the weight of the solid Telecaster by hollowing out sections of the body -- and the guitar even included a token f-hole as a visual clue to its semi-solid status. The Thinline at first retained the standard Tele pickup layout, but with a restyled pickguard" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 47).

The Telecaster Thinline was "basically a Telecaster body with pockets hollowed-out from the rear, including a bigger one opening into the top via an 'f' hole. With the exception of the pickguard shape modified to accomodate [sic] the new semi-acoustic design, the Thinline was otherwise identical to a regular '68 Telecaster in terms of neck, electronics and hardware. But its body was about half the weight of a regular Telecaster. The new variant was first listed in July 1968 for $319.50…To convey the idea of a lighter, almost acoustic guitar, the Thinline was at first released in only natural ash and mahogany finishes with a 2-piece maple neck…By 1969, it also became available with a 3-tone sunburst finish and an optional rosewood-capped neck" (A.R. Duchossoir, The Fender Telecaster, p. 23).