❌SOLD❌ Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster Blonde, 2011

The Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster hews closely to the original 1951 design but also brings in meaningful modern improvements. The subtle nature of those improvements gives credit to the genius of Leo Fender’s creation; the most visible changes are a six-saddle bridge, modern staggered-post tuners, micro-tilt RW/RP pickups, medium-high fret wire and a ‘Delta Tone’ no-load tone control circuit.

Like the originals, the Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster uses Ash for the body and a Maple neck with Walut ‘skunk stripe’. The body gets a translucent blonde nitro finish, the neck clear with a light ‘aging’ tint to the nitrocellulose lacquer.

The Ash body is very similar to the original layout, with the strings loading through ferrules on the back, through the body and over the saddles. The bridge, however, is not the original ‘ashtray’ type, being instead a flat section with raised back to support the saddle intonation screws. There are six Strat-type bent steel saddles for precise control of intonation. The use of these saddles, which date back to the original 1954 Stratocaster, gives a blend between the ‘Vintage’ sound of the original three-brass-saddle Tele bridge and the modern six-saddle bridge with more massive saddles.

The Maple neck uses a 9.5 inch radius and ‘C’ profile, not quite as girthy as the first Tele necks. It also has larger, non-vintage fret wire, which can be much easier to grip when bending. It also has a modern ‘Bi-Flex’ truss rod, which allows for increasing neck forward bow or relief should the strings not provide enough tension. The tuners are modern Fender branded models built by Schaller and with staggered-height posts to reduce the need for string trees, and hence less friction and improved tuning stability. The neck plate is the four-bolt type, engraved for the 60th Anniversary logos, with an extra hole for access to the ‘Micro Tilt’ set screw.

The pickups are American Vintage models in a RW/RP set to provide hum cancellation in the middle position. The ‘Delta Tone’ no-load circuit offers no visual difference from the stock controls. It centers around a tone pot with essentially a short circuit when the control is at full, so the signal does not pass through the resistive element at all. This allows for a detectable increase in high end. There is a change in ‘feel’ of the rotating pot at that bypass point.

This Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster example dates to 2011 at Corona, California. It is in overall good condition with light fret wear and a few small marks in the thinner Nitro finish, mostly around the edges.

These are great guitars, reasonably light-weight and very resonant; the modern larger fretwire, to my hands, offers much better grip that allows a lighter touch.

This Fender 60th Anniversary Telecaster is sold with its original SKB hard shell case, which contains the original case candy and un-used Fender strap.