A Holy Grail of Telecaster Collectordom!

stubhead

Master Member
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In 1993, Fender commissioned Spruce Hill Music in Minnesota to make about 400 aluminum Stratocaster bodies and 100 aluminum Telecaster bodies. 109 of the Stratocaster bodies got made into the Fender Harley-Davidson 90th Anniversary Commemorative model, recently selling for $22,000 - $30,000 - our "new economy" may change this. Many of the other Strats were anodized into blue, purple, green and red splotch finishes - yuk?  :icon_scratch: The Tele bodies & guitars seem to have fallen off the face of the Earth - apparently into collectordom, somebody's sitting on 'em. I found ONE picture of a splotchy blue on on the whole internet, and a story of someone driving through sixteen states trying to find one - unsuccessfully.

S6300115-1.jpg


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One of them found it's way into the hands of an old, old friend of mine - high school daze, 33 years back? Leo owns a studio in Minneapolis and has been sitting on this for 15 years. I have been trying to weasel it out of him for five... I traded him a ridiculously low-value amount of stuff for it, a DeArmond Guild-clone guitar and a Lexicon reverb unit. I think it's mostly that he knows it's going to get hooked up and PLAYED, as he is not a "collector" collector but a fellow addict, sitting on a Holy Grail...

Yee-Haw!

This is the $25,000 strat:

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I suspect my Tele will end up looking more like this Strat than anything else:

T-broalumstrat.jpg


That Tele in the picture is a custom "dobro" made by Spruce Hill, as they kept the forms/jigs/patterns and are licensed to bang out custom one-offs. Gee, I hope I have enough treble.... :laughing7:





 
Wow, that's a hell of a thing.  How much does it weigh?

I've heard that acrylic bodies are bad because they expand with heat and go out of tune... wouldn't an aluminum guitar be even worse?

You should get a graphite neck for it.

:kewlpics:
 
Result  :blob7:

You have to do something very special with that.  Surely DangerousDoug could come up with a special scratch plate for that bad boy.
You cant just go flat black.........


:hello2:
 
Cheers for sharing. I have a wet patch in my pants at the prospect of this!!!

I'd sell numerous family members for that body!
 
Soloshchenko said:
Cheers for sharing. I have a wet patch in my pants at the prospect of this!!!

I'd sell numerous family members for that body!

Jesus Christ, dude!
 
err - wow.  Yea, that's quite the thing!  Please keep us posted on how it comes together.
 
Those are very rare, at leat the ones that were made for Fender. I've seen a few pop up on Ebay from time to time, and usually sell quite fast. I got snipped on a spruce hill tele body last year that was on ebay...Nice find.... Some of the Strat bodies were also made into some anniv Ford Mustang models...:icon_thumright:
fendermustangstrat_lg.jpg
 
Please allow me to be the first to say it this time...............Paint it black.
 
Holy..........what a find!!!

At least I can say......I kinda/sorta know someone who has one of those.  :laughing7:
 
i have actualy had the good fourtune to play one of these  :hello2:
they are amazing the tele bodies
because they are hollow they have amazing sustain
the metal gives them insolation because the entire guitar is a giant ground
they also have amazing controlled feedback
the one i played was purchased from a memphis pawnshop in 1995 for $500
 
That's pretty cool.  If your tour van ever breaks down in the desert, you can use it to flag down help because it's so reflective! 
 
hannaugh said:
That's pretty cool.  If your tour van ever breaks down in the desert, you can use it to flag down help because it's so reflective! 
Or start a fire..... :icon_biggrin:
 
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