Fender American Deluxe Telecaster Sunburst, 2011

The Fender American Deluxe Telecaster visually references the classic 1959 – 1965 Telecaster Custom with its sunburst finish and bound top, but with a Maple neck and comfort contours. However, it is much more than that, with significant updates to the hardware.

Dating to September of 2011, this Fender American Deluxe Telecaster has been used as intended and the Alder body bears the marks of real, honest use with a number of dings, dents and small finish chips around the edges. It actually looks great, and to my hand the C profile Maple neck on these is one of the most comfortable shapes. The heel is lightly contoured, the neck plate is shaped to match, and incorporates the very helpful Micro-Tilt components.

The hardware selection is top notch. It came stock with a 6 chromed brass saddle bridge – these saddles are very comfortable for palm muting – and with staggered-post locking tuners. The locking tuners don’t aid tuning stability much, but they make fast string changes a breeze, and that’s really helpful in a gigging context. The pickups are N3 Noiseless, there is a standard 3-position switch and the volume control incorporates an S-1 switch, while the tone control uses a No-Load type pot. On this guitar, with the 3-way switch in the middle position, the S-1 switch moves the pickup combination from Parallel to Serial.

This guitar recently had a fret dress and setup, and plays well.

The original hard shell case is included.