Small switch on Tele, what is it?

[Keither]

I just picked up a made-in-Japan Telecaster at a pawn shop here in Japan. It has all the standard Tele features PLUS a small metal toggle switch. I have never seen such a switch on any Tele and can't find the switch on any Tele photo on the web. Does anyone have any ideas about what this switch is or what model of Tele I might have (un)luckily picked up? The 'tronics on the guitar don't work so I can't yet test out what the switch does. Thanks for any and all help on this.

[BB]

Sounds like an after market mod that could do a number of things. It could put the pups in series for a fatter tone. It could be a tap for the bridge pup. It could put the pups out of phase.

I've done this on several teles ( drilling a hole for a min switch ) and currently have one set to change the neck bucker from parallel to single coil to series.

[Pete Galati]

That'd be my guess, that it was supposed to put the pickups in series.

Did it look like this one?:



That one's a DPDT mini toggle switch, at PartsExpress.

Personally, I wouldn't try to fix someone else's amateur wiring job. I'd tear out the wiring and just wire it up like a normal Tele.

[Keither]

Thanks to Pete and BB for their quick replies. About the image that Pete posted, no it doesn't look so modern or like a standard guitar or electrical appliance switch, not that I've seen in the last 20 years, anyway. It's a thin metal switch, not tapered or rounded or anything like that, a bit less than a centimeter long. The metal is dark and looks/feels very cheap, like the old "crickets" I used to play with as a kid, but much thinner on the guitar, of course, almost like a switch on a very old computer, when they had just switches -- and no screens! This thing is a real mystery, and until I can get up to a big city (I live in rural Japan) I won't be able to get the guitar wired up and find out what it does.