Cheers Mr Poppatwang,
the fact that there's ferrules in the body still has me puzzled & thinking the Bigsby had been grafted onto a diff Tele re-issue & the ebay listing a little misleading.
I've one of these MIJ 90's custom re-issues which is an stunning guitar so in my naivety assumed the bigsby boy would be similar with regards to playability.
http://electricguitar.50megs.com/tele.htm