How many black guards are there? (52,53)

They stamped roughly 5500 serial numbers on bridges. They were obviously used on broadcasters, no asters, telecasters and esquires. A very few of those bridges ended up un early whiteguards in 1954 so just under 5500 blackguards

 

Of the 5500 blackguards made, More than 20000 are known to have survived

 

See Nacho's Black Guard Book....it's all in there....mine is there...


RJ

 

Of course, it started this year......

https://www.blackguardlogs.com/

 

Supposedly only 475 Nocasters made. I personally know of two of them.

One's mine and the other owner is Vince Gill.

 

Nacho has Blackguard production estimates in his book. I don’t have it handy, but I seem to recall 1950 was about 200, 1951 about 1100, and 1952 about 1,500, 1953 was about 2000, 1954 (6 months until white guard) was about 700. That is assuming all 5500 bridge plates were used. Nacho guessed about half of the blackguards every made survived to the present. I’d guess it’s over 70%, as 69% of all 1959 bursts are accounted for in the LP registry (and some are probably not yet registered). So my guess is that roughly 4,000 Blackguards still exist, although less than 50% of those are probably all original with no mods.


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Yeah, production numbers is a factor and Broadcasters/Nocasters have been fetching higher premiums than the Teles for decades. You could argue that, technically speaking, they aren't even real Telecasters.

Good news is I'm accepting Nocaster, Broadcaster, Esquire or Telecaster donations in my personal residence if anyone really needs to forfeit for the write off. Even a reissue will do, okay, an MIM will be okay, mmmk, hell I'll take a Classic Vibe, I'm tele-less at the moment and it's no way to live.

 

There are plenty of bursts in collections that aren't on the serial log. Dirk Ziff for example keeps his very extensive collection very private