This guitar, along with the original MusicMan Stingray, also listed for sale here at Just Guitars, comes to us through the family of a well known Sydney player, who, sadly, is no longer able to play, due to deteriorating health.
Fender’s Telecaster Deluxe debuted in January 1973 and was in production until 1981. Along with the Custom Telecaster, the Tele Deluxe was part of the company’s concerted attack on Gibson’s seemingly unassailable humbucker market, its power-packed pickups designed by the legendary Seth Lover. Many Fender players quickly became humbucker converts with the appearance of the Custom and Deluxe models.
The Tele Deluxe certainly had a degree of familiarity for Gibson players – right down to the familiar Les Paul-style selector switch on the upper bass-side horn and separate tone and volume controls for each pickup – but was differentiated from the Kalamazoo product by its Poplar body, bolt-on one-piece Maple neck and Strat-style headstock shape.
Our Deluxe here is one of the very last of the F-series Telecasters, its serial number, (see pic # 7), dating it to the last quarter of 1976. (The 700,000 numbers ran only from September to December of 1976, after which the new S-prefix numbers came in) The original CTS pots are dated the second last week of December, 1975, (tone) and early April ’76, (volume).
In quite amazing condition for an almost 40 year old guitar, the Deluxe is all original, with the possible exception of one replaced string ferrule on the back, and the nut, which appears to have been upgraded to bone at some point. There is negligible fret wear, no fingerboard divots or wear and the back of the neck is perfect and unmarked. There is some extremely marginal wear along the edge of the board in a couple of spots, the back of the body exhibits only light play wear and there are a couple of minor edge dings here and there, plus the arm wear visible in pics 1, 2 and 8). The original grained Walnut finish is in generally excellent condition throughout.
The Seth Lover humbuckers pack a hefty wallop, with neck pickup resistance of 10.7k ohms and 11.3 for the bridge, making this a guitar you can do some serious rocking out with! Or, roll the volume off a little and let it take you to myriad other tuneful, toneful destinations.
This brilliant 1976 Telecaster Deluxe needs no work whatsoever and is sitting here just begging for a new home. It ships in its original Fender hard shell case, as shown in the photos
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