Fender Telecaster 1963 reissue with Warmouth boatneck, and Seymour Duncan Alnico II pro's.

This is a monster Telecaster. The Big neck makes the difference. The Alnico II pro's are very sweet. The fat neck gives a lot of body to the tone. It got an ebony fingerboard that I now view as a mistake. Coulda had rosewood. Not so much of a mistake that it wasn't my number 1 guitar for 6 years, but still, I shoulda done rosewood. The ebony plays better, but the rosewood sounds better to me. Ebony has a pingy thing happening. Works for a lota guys, but not me. According to my guitar tech Tom Weber Ebony will warp, and its so strong that its stronger than the truss - so you can get into deep shit with ebony if you live in a humidity unstable environment. Sure is pretty, though.

The 50's tele's sounded great not because they had better bridges or old wood, but because they had big necks (and have old finishes). In another article I will give an explanation for why this is true complete with spectrum analysis.

A Birdseye boatneck on a tele is great for stopping bar fights - seriously.

The guitar also has a Gotoh bridge and machines heads. All this made a difference, but the big neck was the big difference. The axe cost me 300 bucks, the neck was 250 - and the aftermarket hardware (it came with the ATII pro's) was another hundred or so. So I have a killer Tele, road or studio ready for 650. Tedrank ****. A fine Tele for reasonable money.