FENDER ELITE TELECASTER (1983-1985)

  • Fender Elite Telecaster (1983)

Overview

Brand name: 

Product: 

  • electric guitars

Series name: 

Dates of manufacture: 

1983 to 1985

By the end of the 1970s the quality and reputation of instruments produced by CBS-owned Fender was beginning to suffer. Fender brought in new expertise - including Dan Smith of Yamaha, to turn around their fortunes. Smith began by recreating some of the popular vintage designs in Vintage Reissue series. A second strategy was the Elite series (a Stratocaster, a Telecaster and a Precision bass), introduced in 1983 and designed to be cutting edge modern instruments with the latest features.

The Elite instruments had three variations: a walnut version, a gold hardware version, and a regular version. Fingerboards were maple or rosewood. Each came in a wide range of standard and custom finish colors. The Elites were discontinued in 1984 when CBS sold Fender.

The Elite Telecaster had a heavy cast 6-saddle top-loading bridge, noise-cancelling pickups with alnico 2 magnets, active TBX and MDX tone controls, knobs with rubber inserts for easy gripping, and a 3-way pickup selector switch. It had a bound top and an adhesive pickguard which you could stick on yourself if you wanted.

Specifications (17)

General

Bindingbody binding
Finish colorsblack finish, blue finish, cream finish, natural finish, white finish
Finish effectssunburst finish
Made inUSA
Number of strings6 strings

Body

Body materialalder body
Body styleTelecaster style
Pickguard materialwhite pickguard

Hardware

Bridgefixed bridge
Hardware colorchrome hardware

Fretboard

Fingerboard materialmaple fingerboard, rosewood fingerboard
Fingerboard position markersdot fingerboard position markers

Neck

Number of frets21 fret

Controls

Pickup selector controls3-way selector switch
Tone controls2 tone controls
Volume controls2 volume controls

Electronics

Preampactive preamp

Prices (3)

DatePriceConditionNameComments
1985$2000newStill in mint condition. Color is Cherry red!
1984$15new
1984$800good

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