One of things we love about Esquires is that many of Leo Fender's original design ideas are present - the body shape, bolt-on neck, 6 inline tuners, individually adjustable saddles, height adjustable pickup...all the things we modern players can take for granted came together on this groundbreaking guitar.

Single pickup guitars possess a magic, for lack of a better word, that 2 and 3 pickup guitars simply don't have. "Yeah, but I can't do as much with just one pickup. I have to have a neck pickup!" Well, you're in luck my friend!

The previous owner of this guitar had a "stealth" Duncan neck pickup installed under the pickguard in the neck position to maintain the look of an Esquire while adding the tonal benefits of a neck pickup. The wiring hardness was upgraded as well.

How does it sound? Fantastic. Even though the neck pickup is hidden under the guard, it really doesn't sound dramatically different than a "normally" installed Tele neck pickup. We really dig the stealth arrangement - it's different, still looks like an Esquire, and expands upon the tonal range you can achieve. Very cool!