Boy, we really hit the jackpot with this one! In three of a guitar’s most vital areas – body timber, fingerboard timber, and weight – this guitar wins on every count:-
- Body timber: These were supposedly all two-piece Ash bodies. Well, it’s Ash all right, but we are 99.9999% certain this is a one-piece body! We have examined it under intense workshop bench lights, direct sunlight, even black light, and can find no indication whatsoever* of it being two pieces of timber.
- Fingerboard timber: Well, it’s not Brazilian Rosewood, but even a timber expert would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.
- Weight: Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy Miss Clawdy! (Lloyd Price, 1952) Talk about super light – these Teles were all spec’d around 7lb 12oz. At fractionally under 7lb 1½oz with the mirrors, this would be under 7lb without! Other than a pine body model some years back, this is the lightest Telecaster we have ever had through.
Staff build
Our suspicion is that someone at Fender spotted this incredibly light piece of Ash, and the Rosewood, at the timber selection stage and reserved them for a special staff build. (And quite likely hand-selected the pickups, too, because… holy-moly!!)
Stairway To Heaven
The Jimmy Page original was a 1959 ‘White Blonde’ Telecaster, given to him by Jeff Beck in 1967, as a thank you for getting Beck into the Yardbirds. It is the guitar that Page used almost exclusively on the first Led Zeppelin album, and later, most famously, on the ‘Stairway To Heaven’ solo.
A kid in a candy store!
There’s an online video of Jimmy visiting the Fender Custom Shop, during the design stages of the Mirror Tele, and he’s like a kid in a candy store! “It’s such a thrill, it really is,” he gushes. “This is the first time I’ve ever actually been to a guitar factory.”
A thing of beauty
Featuring an all Ash body, the same as Jimmy’s original, each piece was hand-selected for its grain, intended to show through the White-Blonde nitro gloss lacquer, same as on the original. A thing of beauty, and we haven’t even made it to the neck, the pickups and hardware!
Brazilian
As noted above. The 7¼” radius slab Rosewood fingerboard is incredibly Brazilian-like. Add on vintage-style frets, a bone nut, “Pure Vintage” Fender Deluxe tuners, signature headstock and neckplate, vintage-style single-ply white scratchplate, and you can see that Fender were really going all out on these.
Two way bridge
But wait – there’s more. A matched set of custom-wound Jimmy Page Custom ’59 Tele pickups deliver a fabulous wide open sound, and cloning the rare 1959 “two way” bridge – either top-loading or string-through – with threaded steel saddles, allows for easier bends & slightly warmer tone when strung top-loaded. (You can also string conventionally, through the body, if you so choose)
One of the best
The neck shape was faithfully copied from the Beck/Page original, with what Fender call a custom ‘Oval C-shape’, (think ‘Thin-D’). All up, it’s easy to see why the Mirror Tele has been universally hailed as one of the best Telecasters that Fender have ever created.
Initial run
From 2019’s initial run, your Jimmy Page signature model Mirror Tele comes complete with its original vintage-style tweed case, reproduction “stained glass” pattern Jimmy Page strap, vintage-style coily cable, Certificate of Authenticity, and of course, the 8 mirrors, (already fitted, though also included is Fender’s mirror positioning template).
Free courier delivery
In Mint- condition, FREE COURIER DELIVERY is included to any address in Australia. ($100 airfreight to New Zealand, and $175 to the US, Canada, UK and mainstream European countries)
Weight: 7lb 1½oz / 3.2kg
*Happy to be proved wrong, but honestly, good luck!
Just Guitars
