What's the deal with these Rosewood teles?

[Tom S]

I just came across some Jay Turser rosewood tele auctions that claim the body to be solid rosewood. Is this possible for $199? For that money I would have assumed it was a veneer job.

It would seem the body alone would be worth more than that. Maybe these bodies can't accept anyone else's parts? Anyone have any experience with these Turser guitars?

I have no affiliation whatsoever, just curious. I have to admit to being tempted.

[jwells393]

Here's a picture of one of them. The sides of the body appear to be painted though not painted black like the current MIJ Rosewood Telecasters. I would say they are definitely veneer but at $199 with free shipping they might not be that bad.

[Tom S]

Thanks, I saw this shot as well...



It's a little hard to tell if the top and back are just finished differently. It's hard for me to believe these are solid rosewood, but all the auctions state that it is. I'm dubious.

[JamesVRoy]

How much do they weigh?

Even the oringinal chambered Rosewood Telecasters weighed in around 12 lbs

[RichardL]

Originally Posted by Tom S

I just came across some Jay Turser rosewood tele auctions that claim the body to be solid rosewood. Is this possible for $199? For that money I would have assumed it was a veneer job.

It would seem the body alone would be worth more than that. Maybe these bodies can't accept anyone else's parts? Anyone have any experience with these Turser guitars?

I have no affiliation whatsoever, just curious. I have to admit to being tempted.

Some just paid $1,400 on ebay for one of the new CIJ Rosewood veneer models. Talk about not doing your homework. For that kind of money the buyer could have gotten two of them from Ishibashi or picked up one the first reissues (correct spec) off ebay. But then the seller made it sound like this was a new version of the original reissue and ran a private auction so buyers couldn't be warned off.

[jwells393]

Tom S.,
Your picture clearly shows woodgrain on the body side, so I should amend my above statement about the painted sides.
I remember visiting the translated Ishibishi page for the current Fender Japan Rosewood Telecaster and reading something about the unavailability of rosewood of sufficient size to make solid rosewood guitars. I don't know a lot about rosewood trees but I'm thinking they may not be large in diameter. I have a Fender Japan solid rosewood reissue guitar and the body is made up of six pieces of rosewood ............ three on the front........ three on the back with the thin maple layer sandwiched in between front and back. Every picture I've seen of one of these guitars also showed the same number of pieces. I guess what I'm trying to say is making a body with nice straight grain as seen on the current Fender Japan and Mexico rosewoods and now the Jay Turser can only be done with veneer.
One other point about the Jay Turser .......... since the sides are not painted like those from Japan and Mexico, the binding may be used to hide the point where the side veneer meets the front and back.
Perhaps some TDPRI member has a Jay Turser dealer in his neighborhood and can give us a hands on report.

[Tom S]

Good info, and good discussion, thanks.

Yep, there's grain in them there sides, but is it rosewood? It's really hard to tell from any photos I've seen so far, but the grain does look convincing even if it isn't finished the same way as the top and back. So then the question is whether it's solid or veneer. Since I'm really dubious about this being a solid hunk (or 2 or 3, or more) of rosewood, it would have to be veneer. But then it would be a little unusual to do the sides in veneer (but not out of the question, by any means). I say this because of the extra work involved in following the curves, etc, especially the tight turn at the horn, and at this price point, it seems unlikely. But I agree that the binding would be a perfect way to hide the veneer edges.

Like you, I was also under the impression that decent boards of rosewood were becoming scarce. Perhaps there's a new cache coming out of China or something? Just a thought. It would have to be fairly cheap to obtain to be used in a $199 guitar.

I could contact one of the sellers, but I have a feeling from their auctions that they're just spitting back a list of features provided by Turser. All the auctions seem to use the same list.


To JamesVRoy, none of the sellers I've come across list the weight, which could be a good indicator one way of the other, good point.

To RichardL, I think I saw that auction too. The price seemed high for that guitar, and I guess it was! :)

[John Backlund]

I know of a Yahoo Turser group, and the main guy at Musicland Central (a major internet seller of Turser guitars) can usually be contacted through that site. I'll see if I can get the real 'poop' on the rosewood tele, and while I'm at it, I'll also ask about their ash-bodied model which they list at $199 too.
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/JayTurserGuitars/
It may take a couple of days to get a response, what with Christmas and all, hang tough.

I owned one of their 'thinline' tele clones for a while, and for what it cost (Yes...$199) I thought it was rather decent and would have been fun to upgrade with a maple fretboard neck( I had a local tech determine that a Fender neck should go right on this body, it has a 'vintage' bridge and my Fender ashtay cover snapped right on) but! I sold it to buy another guitar before doing much with it. It was bound on the top and the 'f' hole, but the sides and unbound back were a different, less interesting type of wood. Still, not bad for $200 bucks. I'll probably get another one soon, then build it up (I just happen to have an orphan MIM tele neck laying around right now). You can kind of see the plain wood used on the sides and back of my Turser thinline in this photo:

[Tom S]

Thanks a lot for the info, John!

For the money, it looks like it would at least be a decent platform for some kind of custom tomfoolery. And honestly, that thinline you had doesn't look half-bad at all!

[John Backlund]

Originally Posted by Tom S

Thanks a lot for the info, John!

For the money, it looks like it would at least be a decent platform for some kind of custom tomfoolery. And honestly, that thinline you had doesn't look half-bad at all!

The overall 'build quality' seemed quite good, and cosmetically I was pleased with it. I didn't feel the neck felt quite as 'nice' (subjective as heck) as my MIM tele's neck did, and although I'm not a particularily astute guitar tech, I felt the pickups were somewhat 'muddy' and didn't offer a whole lot of tele 'twang', I had them swapped-out for a used set of Fender pickups which cured that.

The Turser 'thinline' model uses a kind-a-weird see-through dark smoke pickguard rather than an opaque black one like you'd expect. You can't make it out from my photos, but you can see some of the guitar body inletting and wires through the pickguard if you look closely. Not a big deal to me, but a little....odd perhaps.

Those little issues aside, where are you going to find a reasonably decent thinline clone for $200? It was certainly playable as it came stock, but If a guy was to put another hundred or three into one of these, you'd end up with a thinline that would probably compare favorably with the Fender thinline at hundreds less.

Here's a couple of photos of my guitar to give you a better idea of what it looked like, although the indoor pics show it a bit darker and a bit more 'rich' looking than it really was:

[Tom S]

Thanks again, John! I may just snag one for a project.