Offered for your consideration in this early Masterbuilt Custom Telecaster by the now retired (2021) Chris Flemming. This guitar is #002 built in 2001 and was one of Chris’ earliest efforts as a Masterbuilder for the Custom Shop.
This guitar has an alder body bound on both sides. It has a maple neck with a 25.5” string scale and a 60’s oval C-shape measuring .80” at the first fret increasing to .91” at the twelfth fret. The rosewood fingerboard has a 7.25” radius, 21 vintage size frets and clay dot inlays. The bone nut measures 1.640”. It sports a vintage style Tele bridge with three threaded steel saddles. It features Custom Shop Tele pickups with traditional controls and modern wiring (no muddy “rhythm” circuit). It is finished in “Chocolate Sunburst” nitrocellulose lacquer and has been given mild “Closet Classic” aging consisting of very fine finish checking on the guitar’s body. The guitar has a total weight of just 7 pounds, 2 ounces.
I’ve read that Telecasters have always been Chris’ favorite Fender model and this guitar represents an early best effort to reproduce a 1960 Custom Telecaster down to the smallest detail. The resulting instrument is exquisite IMHO. It faithfully replicates the feel and look of a vintage early 60’s Tele while the playability of this hand-built one-off is certainly better than most any vintage Tele I’ve ever come across. The sound is classic Tele twang without being piercing and the pickup outputs measure 7.4 ohms at the bridge and 7.5 ohms at the neck. A brief sound sample is included below. There is no mistaking this for anything but the classic Tele that it is.
This guitar remains in near mint condition with just the light aging Chris applied. I find no other flaws of any significance aside from light playing wear on the pickguard. The frets show no observable wear. It comes in its original brown G&G case with the certificate of authenticity.
Fender Masterbuilt guitar prices now start around $9K and go up from there. This early and arguably better 2001 effort can be yours for thousands of $ less. Make this incredible hand-built Tele yours today. You will be quite glad that you did!
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