Fender Telecaster Deluxe Limited Edition

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2012 Fender Telecaster Deluxe Vegas Gold Sparkle Limited Edition MIM (Made in Mexico)

Vegas Gold Sparkle is a killer finish on this classic limited edition Fender ’72 Deluxe Telecaster reissue with Wide Range Humbucker pickups. I love sparkle guitars.

Limited Edition Vegas Gold Sparkle – Only 300 were made for this FSR (Factory Special Run) model.

Specifications:

Body: Alder with a “belly cut” contour
Color: Vegas Gold Sparkle
Neck: 3 Bolt Maple
Neck Shape: “C” Shape
Scale Length: 25.5″
Fingerboard: 12″ Radius with 21 Medium Jumbo Frets
Fingerboard Inlay: Black Dots
Nut: 1.650″ Synthetic Bone
Bridge/Tailpiece: Vintage-style Strings-through-body Hardtail Bridge
Tuners: Chrome “F” 70s Style Tuners
Neck and Bridge Pickups: Wide Range Humbuckers
Controls: 2 x Volume, 2 x Tone with “amp” style knobs, 3-way Pickup Selector
Case: Fender Hardshell
Made in Mexico

Some Fender Telecaster Deluxe History
Fender Telecaster Deluxe was originally produced from 1972 to 1981. Since was re-issued by Fender in 2004 as the ’72 Telecaster Deluxe. Musical tastes were changing toward a heavier rock sound in the late 1960s with many player moving toward Gibson Les Pauls that featured humbucker pickups. Fender decided to re-think its strategy of exclusively using single-coil pickups. So they hired former Gibson employee Seth Lover, the inventor of the humbucker himself, to design a humbucking pickup for use in a number of Fender guitars. The result was a pickup known as the Wide Range humbucker, and it was used in a variety of different Fender models including the Deluxe, Custom, and Thinline Telecasters.

The Seth Lover-designed Wide Range humbuckers with “Cunife” (Copper/Nickel/Ferrite) rod magnets in the place of pole-pieces. This design yielded a brighter and clearer sound more similar to that of single coil pickups. They were wound with approximately 6,800 turns of copper wire, yielding a DC resistance of approximately 10.6 kΩ (compared to a standard Gibson P.A.F. humbucker typical DC resistance of 9 kΩ). This design yielded a brighter and clearer sound more similar to that of single coil pickups.

The Fender reissues use pickups redesigned by Fender employee Bill Turner in order to achieve a similar sound in the absence of “Cunife” magnets. While looking almost identical to the original 1970s version it differs greatly in its construction, featuring an alnico bar magnet underneath non-magnetized pole-pieces. An ordinary humbucker that is placed in the larger Wide Range Humbucker casing with the gap is filled with wax. This is one important reason the reissued Deluxe sounds different from the original guitars. Another reason is the use of 250kΩ volume and tone pots, while the original used 1 MΩ pots. Using 250kΩ pots with very hot humbuckers results in a dark and muddy sound; a common remedy is to replace the controls with 500kΩ pots, which is generally agreed to improve the sound of the reissues.

The Deluxe was originally conceived as the top-of-the-line model in the Telecaster series was released in late 1972. The “humbucker” equipped Telecasters failed to draw many players away from competitors like Gibson, and the Telecaster Deluxe was discontinued in 1981. Many players have rediscovered these cool guitars and driving the vintage prices upward.

Fender Telecaster Deluxe is unique in that it has an enlarged headstock similar to Fender Stratocaster models manufactured in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. The main difference between the Telecaster Deluxe and Stratocaster necks from this period is that the Telecaster Deluxe neck used medium jumbo frets while the Stratocaster necks featured narrower fretwire. The Telecaster’s neck also features a 3-bolt with “Micro-Tilt” angle adjustment device located in the heel of the neck.

I bought this guitar in this color mainly because I love my Baja FSR Telecaster that is also Vegas Gold which has always received stares and complements.