1983 Fender Telecaster Elite USA Black with Rosewood Board

Description

The Fender Telecaster Elite series was the top of the line range that was launched in 1983 and sadly was short lived as they were discontinued in 1984 when CBS sold Fender to the management buyout. The 1983 Fender catalogue proudly boasts of the guitar’s many advances: “Elite Series instruments incorporate no fewer than 14 new patent-pending inventions by Fender. This alone lends substance to our belief that the rest of the industry will be years in catching up with Elite technology.” All this adds up to one hell of a guitar. Dan Smith said at the launch that the Telecater Elite was aimed to pick up some of the Gibson players and make the into Fender players.

This guitar is totally original and is from the first year of production  and has been well cared for. This guitar was bought as a back up to my cream Elite which was my main guitar that I used for recording. I was so pleased with the first Elite telecaster that I bought that when this one came along I had to buy it.

The body is made of premium grade Alder and is very light weighing just 8.2 lbs and finished in black with white binding. The neck is made of maple with rosewood board. The Elite Telecaster necks featured a Bi-flex truss rod, jumbo frets, and a 12″ radius fretboard. What I like the most is the necks, the 12 inch radius and the soft “V” profile makes this a very fast and easy to play.

The pickups are mini humbucking, noise-cancelling pickups with alnico 2 magnets, active TBX and MDX tone controls capable of creating fat humbucking and cutting single-coil sounds. The special tone circuit using the TBX and MDX (Tone bass expander and mid boost control) which can change the tone of the guitar while also functioning as part of a noise reduction system. This system Fender continue to be used on the current Eric Clapton Strats. The Elite Telecaster has a Gibson-style 3-way toggle switch and easy grip serrated rubber inserts on the knobs. The bridge is a heavy cast 6-saddle top-loading bridge which makes it easy to change strings.

This guitar also has a bound top and has an optional pick guard installed. The guitar is in excellent collectable condition and you will not find a nicer 33 year old example. The frets show slight wear but the neck has no ding or chips in it.The rear of the body has some slight buckle rash on the back and the white binding has turned cream. The sound of this guitar is slightly darker and a little fuller than the Cream one that  I own. This like my other Telecaster Elite is simply one great playing and sounding Telecaster.