As the calendar clicked over into the 1960s, the music industry had little idea of the tumultuous changes in store for it — and popular culture — in the decade ahead. But Fender’s Telecaster, the first solidbody electric guitar ever to be mass produced, was right there in the thick of it, ready to play its part in the coming music revolution. The Fender Custom Shop 1960 Telecaster Custom Heavy Relic celebrates this iconic instrument in all its transitional glory, as the Tele was undergoing significant changes of its own at the turn of that decade. The rock insurgency was barely a twinkle in the eyes of the young musicians who would drive it, but they already had one of their most powerful weapons. The Fender Telecaster, born in the early 1950s, had matured and, by 1960, was eager to assert itself. Most notably, gone was the fat, 1-piece maple neck/fingerboard of the ’50s; replaced by a thinner, faster neck with a separate rosewood ’board. Meticulously handcrafted in the USA by Fender’s elite Custom Shop luthiers, the 1960 Telecaster Custom Heavy Relic brings you a masterful re-creation of this gem from Fender’s golden era, replete with jaw-dropping visuals, off-the-charts playability, and eat-it-with-a-spoon tone.

Vintage vibe with optimized tone and playability

The Fender Custom Shop 1960 Telecaster Custom Heavy Relic captures all the vintage vibe of the 1960 model, in a gorgeous instrument with modern playability and optimized tone. It features a rift-sawn maple neck with a fast, satisfying ’60s Oval “C” neck carve and a triple-A rosewood fingerboard with a modern 9.5-inch radius, so you can bend up high without fretting out. In the electronics department, a dynamic duo of hand-wound Custom Shop Twisted Tele single-coil pickups and modern wiring crank out legendary Tele twang and bite by the boatload. Premium tonewoods, top-drawer components, and painstaking attention to detail give you a guitar that may look six decades old, but plays like a dream — and sounds amazing.

Rift-sawn maple neck for stability

So, what’s the big deal with rift-sawn necks? In a word: stability. Cut radially from quarter-sawn logs cut at a diagonal to the initial quartering cuts, rift-sawn necks are ultra-stable, with thinner grain that is less susceptible to warping and twisting than flat-sawn — or even quarter-sawn — necks. The result is a neck that is more impervious to changes in temperature and humidity. If you gig far and wide, you’ll appreciate this the next time you play Pretoria after a week in Cape Town. The stability and rigidity of rift-sawn necks also translates to better tone and increased sustain.

The Heavy Relic treatment: half-century-old looks, modern playability

Fender Custom Shop's Heavy Relic treatment creates instruments that are spittin' images of the aged originals. Without sneaking a look at the neck heel stamps, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish this axe from the real deal. With its gorgeous nitrocellulose lacquer finish — complete with artfully applied nicks, dings, scratches, and relic'd hardware — the guitar exudes a timeless, classic look, as if it's seen decades of hard-core touring action. Nitro finishes — standard back in the '60s — are significantly thinner than today's polyurethane finishes, allowing the guitar to "breathe." They not only look incredible; they also enhance the instrument's tonal qualities — so your Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition ’60s Telecaster Custom Custom Heavy Relic sounds every bit as wicked as it looks.

Grab it while you can!

What you see in this remarkable axe is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a highly playable, eminently musical-sounding re-creation of an iconic, historical instrument. If you've been pining for a “golden-era” Tele, this is your chance. An original Tele Custom — if you could find one — would set you back a small fortune, and then you'd have to restore it, shelling out for expensive neck work and re-fretting, replacing noisy pickups and scratchy pots, a rusty bridge, damaged tuners, and more. And then it wouldn't be all-original! The Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition ’60s Telecaster Custom Heavy Relic delivers the whole package: flawless playability, along with state-of-the-art hardware and vintage-voiced Custom Shop electronics. Sounds like a solid deal, right? Take it from Music Experience: it is. This guitar is, literally, one of a kind — so grab it before someone else does.

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