Vintera 70s necks

barnstorm

Now that the various Vintera 70s models have been around for a long while, is anyone able to comment, please, on whether Fender’s ‘period-accurate thin C’ / ‘early 70s C’ is appreciably different from any other profile it offers? Or is it pure marketing guff that really means ‘modern C’?

Alexlotl

I have a Vintera 70's Telecaster Deluxe with the 9.5" thin C neck, and a 2007 American Standard Tele with a 9.5" modern C. They're hard to compare by eye as the former has a maple boardand the latter a rosewood board, but what my hand tells me:

-  Neck thickness is about the same at the nut, but by 12th fret the thin C is definitely slightly thicker.
- The thin C absolutely feels plankier - I'd have guessed it was 12" radius if it weren't for the spec sheet. Not sure exactly why this is the case, but I know there has been some debate/confusion about whether the original 72 Deluxes were 9.5" or 12", so perhaps it's something in the shoulders?
- On my Deluxe, the strings run very close to the edge of the neck - the nut seems to be cut with slightly less clearance from the edge to the two E strings. Don't know how much this is by design or if it's sample variation.

I got mine second hand, and the neck alignment was slightly out, which combined with the nut cutting meant the high E was practically off the board by the 15th fret. Easy fix for my local guitar tech, and it plays great now. I seem to gravitate to it for Smiths style arpeggiated/jangly picking stuff, as the fingerboard feels like a slightly larger, flatter canvas than my other Tele.

barnstorm

Thanks very much - that’s enough for me to know not to take a punt and buy blind. The spec sheet measurements are identical at the nut and .030in thicker at the 12th for the 70s, but wasn’t sure about any difference in shape/shoulder.