Fender Telecaster, Blonde (1967)

This '67 Tele gives a whole new meaning to "Nicotine Blonde"

Is it vibey, or just gross?

We ask ourselves this question every now and then, when a guitar with a clear history of living the hard life comes through our doors. Now if your lungs winced if you got within 5 ft of this guitar, that'd be one thing. But this guitar has been in the dive bar slow cooker so long that there's hardly a chance the second-hand effect will take place. Point goes to... vibey.

This mid/late '67 Telecaster started life out as a fairly standard build for the era. Fender was about a year into building many of their single cuts with the now highly desirable "Maple Cap" neck. Instead of a Rosewood fingerboard, you get this nice Maple sandwich that has a distinct response and tone. This guitar's got it, and like many that came before it with a similar neck, we love what it does to these teles! Somewhere along the way, said owner got the idea to integrate some vibrato action into this guitar, and had it "converted" to a Bigsby Tele. It seems likely that a proper shop had a hand in the work, as all of the correct factory equipment was used. A genuine offset bridge, bridge post thimbles, and a period-correct Fender branded Bigsby unit were added, and if you didn't have string ferrules or prior evidence of a standard bridge being installed on the guitar, you'd think this left the factory in whammy formation.

Some years later it seems, the guitar was modified yet again. This time, the original Fender tuners were pulled in favor of what looks to be an older set of Ibanez or similar MIJ-branded tuners, along with a flipped control plate and some old MXR knobs. It was clear that this work was done decades ago, and it just worked on this guitar, so we elected to leave it as is.

The neck was also refretted some years back with larger fretwire. Similar to Gibson medium jumbo wire, the neck plays very well, with nice action, slim/moderate taper profile, and perfectly worn-in edges.

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, the original finish is hidden beneath the layers of smoky Marlboro, Camel, and whatever other brand of cigarette you could think of. Is it Blonde? Is it Olympic White? Does it matter at this point? The exposed woodgrain would suggest Ash (the default wood for Blonde finish), but the more opaque finish has a little bit of an Olympic White thing going on. We're well beyond the color making a difference here...

What more can be said, really?! It's a weathered and worn beast of a guitar that is an undeniable vintage player.

Paired with a modern Fender thermometer case.