Wtb to buy a Telecaster but I’ve never owned one and don’t know what to buy too much choice

jonnyburgo

Classic 50’s Tele should be within your budget, more or less a Baja without the fancy pickups, having said that you should be able to get a Baja for £400

chris78

Go get a baja, either 50s or 60s depending on your neck preference, if you don’t like that, you don’t like teles

Milk

I went for a more budget version as liikewise i never owned a tele. i bought a harley benton one from thomann. something like £130 with a solid ash body with the intention of modding

bignorm

I drove up to Absolute music this afternoon coz I figured they'd have a few on the wall.

First I tried a Fender Player Tele, Pau Ferro in sonic red.
It was hidious, the string saddles were screwed down as low to get a reasonable action. This left all the bridge saddle grub screws exposed which would have cut the palm of my hand to shreds.
The fingerboard was so dry it looked like it had been rubbed with talcum powder.
I ran the palm of my hand down the side of the neck and some of the fret wire ends were sharp.
all this before even plugging it in so I rejected it..

Next up a Fender American Deluxe. 
Maple neck was comfortable to play with no set up issues 
Overall it sounded good and was instantly nice to play.
American noiseless pick ups too.
But at £1199 used its not for me

SlopeSoarer

Vintage V52? Fits in budget, new. Even cheaper used.

Not played one myself (intend to get one at the right price) but have a Vintage V6 (and have had other Vintage guitars) and it's been great, love it: )

I had a Squier Tele CV60 but as beautiful as it was (personally think CV50's is more tele sounding) I didn't get on with the glossy neck. I also had a Squier VM Strat which had a similar neck again I didn't get on with it, whereas the Vintage V6 neck is superb (IMO).

Just my thoughts/limited experience:-)

 

pintspiller

You might be able to get a used USA model for your money if you can find another hundred

Greatape

Quite a few used American Special teles and the occasional Highway 1 floating around.

kt66

Just to be different look at G&L 

Stuckfast

You could probably still get an early 80s Tokai Breezysound within your budget. Those are great guitars.

ESBlonde

At that sort of budget a used 'Lite ashe' Tele will say fender on the headstock, comes with a modern neck camber and larger frets, fitted with DiMarzio pickups as standard.

They are not quintessential classic vintage tele tones for cork sniffers, but they will twang and growl very nicely. Also because they are all used it will not cost an arm and a leg if you decide to move it on later.

bignorm

I should explain that I'm not a cork sniffer so it doesn't have to say fender on the headstock.
I mentioned the Andy Summers Tele only coz it was what started the gas.
I'm not a fan of trying to make a guitar sound like something else. I have a Les Paul if I want Lester tones. 
My main gigging guitars for the 80s party band are a couple of Prs EG-IIs.  They cover about 99% of what i want to achieve tonally but I also need to bring back some slide playing and alternative drop tunings. 
Something my EGs hate. 
I read somewhere that teles respond well to using the vol knob to get different tones from a cooking valve amp. 
My EGs do that and I'm for ever using my vol pot to achieve chimey tones.
What I don't want to do is buy something for £500 and then spend ages swapping stuff out to get what I want. 
I don't mind having a partocaster or a Levin, G&L etc if the woods and neck are sound.

bignorm

I put a tremo-no on my egII as a quick hardtail for slide but the action is too low..
I'd rather have a hardtail for that job.
Plus I have gas for something I've never owned.. I've been playing for 45 years consider it a guitarist midlife crisis... we all seem to want a Tele as we get older 

bignorm

chris78 said:

Go get a baja, either 50s or 60s depending on your neck preference, if you don’t like that, you don’t like teles

The fender American deluxe had a nice neck that I felt very comfortable playing.

Troglodyte

bignorm said:

It was hidious, the string saddles were screwed down as low to get a reasonable action. This left all the bridge saddle grub screws exposed which would have cut the palm of my hand to shreds.

I had to change out the bent steel saddles on my tele for block saddles... no more exposed screws.

ICBM

bignorm said:

The fender American deluxe had a nice neck that I felt very comfortable playing.

Look for a second hand USA Standard. Maybe not quite in your price range, but close. Older ones are sometimes seen as less desirable because they have the 'block' bridge saddles which a lot of purists think ruin the proper Tele sound. (They don't.)

The only real problem with them is the crappy bridge pickup, unless it's already been changed - that *does* ruin the proper Tele sound.

bignorm

I got a used Levinson Blade in the end, I think I did alright getting it for £260 used.
The neck is pretty modern shallow D, but I can put up with that. 
I plan to tweak it a bit to suit me..
First job will be replacing the barrel bridge saddles coz they’re pretty naff and as I’ve a set of Prs saddles sitting in my bits drawer doing nothing, I’ll see if I can get them to fit and intonate before laying out cash on some thing else.
Overall the levinson does some pretty passable Tele tones  
and the onboard VSC gives a couple of extra tones too.

Cheers for all your advice it helped me work out what I wanted.

HandwrittenHero

Grats on the new guitar!

Didnt get chance to reply earlier - my suggestion re Fender on the headstock is purely a resale thing - you don’t take as big a bath reselling the big boys as you do something like a Suhr, so I’d always recommend based around that to someone who was exploring what they like.