Up for sale, a 2009 Fender Custom Shop Custom Classic Telecaster, complete with the original COA and hardshell case. Heavily modified my Mike Lull Guitarworks to replicate Pete Townshend's Telecaster from The Who's 1982 tour, this Custom Shop Fender features a pair of Kent Armstrong Zplus humbuckers with coil-tap functionality, Sperzel tuners, and a modern six-saddle bridge.
Tonewoods include an ash body and figured birdseye maple neck, and this Tele dishes out plenty of natural authority, midrange complexity and treble detail, qualities faithfully translated via the Kent Armstrong Zplus pickups. These resin-cast premium hand-wound USA pickups are the exact model famously used by Pete Townshend, utilizing ceramic magnets and delivering plenty of muscle and articulation. The global push/pull coil tap on the Tone pot offers three additional single coil pickup settings with more traditional Tele sparkle and cut. This Telecaster weighs 7lbs 14oz, professionally setup here at Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar with 10-46 strings, low action, and accurate intonation.
The maple neck has densely packed birdseye figuring across the profile and fingerboard, and the neck has a substantial U-shaped profile carve with generous shoulder in every register and lightly rolled fretboard edges, measuring .885" deep at the 1st fret and .965" at the 12th. The fretboard has a modern 9 1/2" radius with stock medium jumbo fretwire which retains its full factory height and well-rounded crowns, showing only very light wear on the crowns of frets 1-4, with even fainter wear extending beneath the plain strings until fret 7. The guitar plays cleanly up the 25 1/2" scale with a straight neck and responsive, optimally adjusted truss rod. The nut measures a full 1 11/16" in width, and the headstock is fitted with upgraded Sperzel locking tuning machines (another nod to Townshend). The faint imprint of the original Kluson tuners is visible on the back of the headstock, with singular cleanly doweled mounting holes beyond the Sperzel's footprint. The back of the headstock also retains Fender's Custom Shop chevron logo and the neck heel is stamped Jan 14, 2009.
The electronics include the upgraded Kent Armstrong Zplus humbucker pair and wiring harness with 500k Volume pot and push/pull Tone pot, and Gibson-style three-way pickup selector. The ash body was cleanly routed by Mike Lull Guitarworks for both humbuckers, with a tiny bit of additional routing on the back edge of the control cavity to accommodate the push/pull pot. The six-saddle chrome-plated bridge is an additional upgrade, and the guitar retains its Custom Shop four-bolt neck plate with CZ-prefix serial, matching the included COA.
The ash body features a nitro lacquer Lake Placid Blue Fender Custom Shop factory finish, and the nitro gloss is lightly applied, with the grain of the body wood faintly visible under direct lighting. Cosmetic wear includes some small finish chips on the back and lower bout body edge, and a small spot of very light buckle rash central to the back. The nitro gloss finish on the neck profile is flawless.
The original Fender Custom Shop black tolex hardshell case is included, along with the original COA and a Fender Custom Shop cable.