The Fender 70th Anniversary Esquire reproduces one of the earliest production electric guitars, the single pickup Esquire. This seminal instrument sparked an explosion in electric guitar production, particularly solidbody guitar production.

Like the original run, the Fender 70th Anniversary Esquire uses a Roasted Pine body. Pine was readily available, inexpensive and easy to work, making it ideal for development of both the guitar design and production techniques. The neck is one piece of Maple but isn’t built exactly like the earliest models – it has a truss rod, and a somewhat thinner neck profile. The pickup is a Tim Shaw design, aiming for the sound of those early pickups. The wiring follows the original pattern, with the 3-way switch offering a bypass of the tone control, then having the tone control in circuit, and finally, in the neck position, a preset tone capacitor plus the tone control.

This is a very good guitar. One might think that the single pickup makes the guitar less versatile, but it may be that it shifts the versatility to the player.

The Fender 70th Anniversary Esquire is sold with its original tweed hard shell case.

Here is the builder on the Fender 70th Anniversary Esquire:

“The very first solid-body electric guitar offered by Fender in 1950 was the Esquire. With an elegant single-cutaway silhouette, adjustable 3-saddle bridge and a lone, repurposed lap-steel pickup in the bridge position – the Esquire laid the groundwork for all solidbody electric guitars to follow and foreshadowed its more famous sibling, the Telecaster.

Like the earliest Esquire models, the 70th Anniversary Esquire features a pine body – a lightweight wood known for punchy and complex tone – and upgrades it with our roasting treatment, greatly improving the resonance of the body. Other features include a lacquer finish, thick “U”-shaped neck, Tim Shaw-designed Esquire bridge pickup – inspired by an original ’50 Esquire from Songbirds Museum in Chattanooga, TN – special anniversary neck plate and tweed case.    Production of the 70th Anniversary Esquire will be limited to 2020 only.”

Fender 70th Anniversary Esquire Specifications: