I've been looking for a black Classic 60s Tele for a while, and I won the bidding on one on ebay about a week ago. It arrived in overall pretty good condition, but with corroded, dead strings and a really high action. I was looking forward to giving it the usual thermionic clean and setup but noticed that it looked like the ferrules were missing. Seemed like the ball ends were just held in the wood. Well, they sometimes have a tendency to fall out. But I couldn't see bare wood where a ferrule might have been, just a hole surrounded by black paint. It looked like it was supposed to be like that.
So anyway, I decide I need ferrules in there before I put new strings on. Rather than order online and wait, I popped into the local guitar shop on Saturday afternoon and picked up a pack of Fender Tele ferrules (they have a rack of Fender parts, very useful to be able to pop in and get genuine spares like that). When I took the old strings off, it was clear that the hole was far too narrow to accept a ferrule. This reinforced my idea that somehow this was deliberate, and yet, I'd never heard of a Tele with no ferrules. It looked like the layers of paint on the sides of the hole had effectively narrowed the aperture, and I needed to ream it out, just take the paint off to open it up to the right diameter. A drill bit on a very slow speed should do it...
As I was doing this, I heard a crack, the paint chipped, and this happened:
http://i.imgur.com/qJ3PvJg.jpgOK, there are ferrules there, but they're under a layer of paint. Why would they put the ferrules in before painting the body?
I couldn't miss the glaring redness around the hole though.
http://i.imgur.com/7Rc8SU4.jpgUnder a magnifying glass, that's a lovely Candy Apple Red! I scraped the black paint off the remaining ferrules.
So it was a CAR body, the ferrules were inserted, then they decided to paint over it in black and didn't bother taking the ferrules out first. I think CAR for the Classic 60s Tele is a relatively recent thing (this is a 2000) and they were originally available only in black or white. The Muddy Waters Tele was around at that time, and was basically a MIM Classic 60s in CAR but with different hardware, so in theory the body could have been destined for a Muddy Waters Tele originally. However there's no evidence of the extra pickguard screw hole that a Muddy Waters Tele would have.
How common is a factory overspray in MIM Fenders?
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A friend of mine once bought a faked MIM standard which goes to show that even non US guitars are being replicated.
Found this:
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=272653616821&alt=web
Neck is genuine, bridge is fine, it's the body I'm not sure about.
Perhaps, somebody made an amateurish attempt to drill their own stringing and ferrule holes, damaged the original paint then felt the need to disguise this?
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@MattFGBI will know for sure, but I think it's highly unlikely that's a Fender factory job even if the body is genuine.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Staytrem is better.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Painting over the ferules is an odd one though. Y'see, the ferules will be installed as part of the final build. If it were a paint flaw issue that was being rectified, that is likely to be pre installation of the ferules. Ditto repainting to satisfy orders.
Inside the cavity there should be a bar code label - and some (not all) Mexican guitars have the serial number quoted on this, if there is one does it match the neck?
If not, it could be a partcaster...
I agree that the ferrules would be one of the last things to be done (probably just before stringing up, as they have a tendency to fall out). Ditto the pickguard screw holes, which would fit in with my theory that it's a Muddy body repurposed at some point. I did some digging about the Muddy Waters Tele, they came out at around this time but the body wood was ash, not alder.
There's nothing about the black paint that makes me think it's anything other than a factory job. Certainly nothing amateur about it. It has the same look and feel as all the other MIM Fenders I've owned.
I'll post a photo of the cavity later on tonight...
Is it just the light in those eBay pics or does the area around the strap button/neck join/bass side of the body look too round?
60's TELECASTER RW CAR W/GIG. that's what we sold it as. The black paint is nothing do do with Fender!
Someone has attempted a "respray" here....
contactemea@fender.com
Here's a pic of the neck pocket FWIW:
http://i.imgur.com/ECkxxCy.jpg
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein