I'm in the Game! NGD 2002 '52 AVRI

This is my very first Tele. I've been playing seriously since I was a freshman in 1974 and I've had (and still have) some great gear, but for some reason I've never really felt the itch until I guess the past year or so. Details on my experiences with Teles below, but first, here she is!








It came with what I gather is called a 'claw hammer' bridge, ash tray bridge cover, strap, etc. Does anyone know what that small toothed metal washer looking thing in the little plastic bag is for?



When I first talked to the seller he said there was also an 'oil can' that came with the guitar (I don't think he's the original owner so it must've been from another private seller). I thought it was some small thing that fit in the case and maybe held a little bit of oil for the guitar parts but it's actually some Fender Custom Shop marketing swag, a sealed, empty full sized oil can. I guess I can pry open the lid and keep guitar pics or something in there. I know this isn't a Custom Shop guitar so maybe the prior seller just threw it in. Coincidentally, there are also some Fender Custom Shop guitar picks in the little plastic bag that holds the case keys.




My dad is a very hip guy - when he was young he played in a band that did Little Richard stuff. He could sound just like him, he had that amazing range and high falsetto and everything. He also had excellent taste in music. When I was a little boy, in our home were the LPs 'Meet the Beatles,' 'Introducing the Beatles,' the Kinks' 'You Really Got Me' and 'Having a Rave-up with the Yardbirds.' On the cover of this last LP was a smiling Jeff Beck holding a blonde Fender Telecaster-looking guitar (it's actually an Esquire but you can't tell from the cover). I associated that guitar with the amazing guitar sound on songs like 'You're a Better Man Than I,' 'Evil Hearted You,' 'I'm a Man' and 'Train Kept A Rolling.' But by the time I was actually playing and buying guitars I had moved on to bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin and all I wanted was a Gibson.

The first time I ever held a Telecaster was in the early 80s in a very large music store in Seoul, Korea that catered to local musicians but sold tons of used equipment, including gear obviously purchased from American soldiers. The shop owner had a brownish Tele and let me plug it into a Marshall full stack, which he proceeded to turn up all the way while I was playing it. A large crowd of Koreans gathered so I decided I'd better make it worth their while and went for it. Odd that although I'm very much a Les Paul guy, what I remember as a stock Tele with a single coil bridge pickup produced what might've been the very best (and certainly loudest) guitar tone I ever got.

I gave up playing for a while but restarted around the year 2000. I started visiting Guitar Center stores all around the country since I was traveling a lot for a client, and two things GC always seemed to have were vintage 52 Teles and cherry burst American Deluxe Teles. I was never a Tele guy - I always thought they were very plain, very much working men's guitars as opposed to the fancy Gibsons I usually played, but for some reason both of those Teles really spoke to me. I was amazed at how comfortable the neck of the '52 was. I never really liked rounded vintage fretboards but those were really a pleasure to play and I never forgot it. Around that time I bought my first Fender in a long time (a friend of my sister's gave me a '60s Mustang when I was in high school and I stupidly sold it to a friend for $50 - he turned around and stupidly sold it to a music store for about $150), an Eric Johnson Strat and that sated my Fender fix for a long time.

Fast forward to sometime last year or maybe the year before. Playing in a classic rock band, I had bought and sold Fenders and Paul Reed Smiths, held on to my favorite Les Paul and bought two more, but I just kept lingering over pictures of '52 AVs and AVRIs, and American Deluxe Teles. I foolishly started searching craigslist and Facebook Market Place for 'telecaster' and then started contacting sellers to find out more about their guitars and whether they were flexible on the price.

As some may know I finally decided on a 2017 American Vintage but I think I contacted the seller on the very day he decided he had to go into Corona isolation. I then re-contacted a guy selling an AVRI '52 on Facebook who'd taken down his ad. His guitar was still for sale and he was a little flexible on the price. I started a thread here on TDPRI to see what folks thought would be better, waiting for the all-clear and getting the 2017 or buying the 2002 now. As is clear from the photos above, I decided to buy the AVRI last week.

I am very glad I did. I'm bonding with this guitar much more than my last purchase, a beautiful 2004 Anniversary American Standard Strat in mint condition. The Tele is very different from my Gibsons but for some reason just seems extremely comfortable, like an old friend I haven't seen for years. I haven't been able to play much at full volume but it'll be great when I finally get to play it with my band.

Thanks to everyone on the forum who helped me with this decision. I'm a Tele player now!

Jesse

 

I may have misheard that, er, invented it!

Jesse