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Hey gang. A friend is selling a rosewood Tele like George's that was made for the Japanese market. Anyone here interested?

jdogric12aolcom wrote:Hey gang. A friend is selling a rosewood Tele like George's that was made for the Japanese market. Anyone here interested?

Price?

Not sure, maybe like $1000-ish?

You need to find out which "Rosewood Tele" model it is. There are several and the price differences and value are huge. I sold my '86 Japanese rosewood Tele a few months ago for $2,700. If it's the real deal with the real rosewood body with the thin light-colored lamination through it and a rosewood neck with a maple skunk stripe, $1,000 would be a heck of a deal. If it's one of the ones with a veneered top with black-painted sides, that price might be OK.

Jason, you probably need to provide more details ... the one I have is from the c. 1986 era and is considered an 'accurate' reproduction in that it has a massive, slightly chambered, sandwiched body, and a solid rosewood neck; all that rosewood makes mine weigh in at 9.35 lbs. Some later ones had more chambering, and others had a different body wood with rosewood caps, IIRC [note added in proof: current production appears to be of this latter construction: http://cgi.ebay.com/Fender-Japan-Rosewo ... dZViewItem].

Bottom line: not all 'Rosewood Telecasters' are created equal.

And yes, I need to reply to your last PM. Pray for soon, expect later.

[edit: Todd types faster than I do ...]

I saw a guy on stage with a rosewood Strat. Anyone else seen one of those? Nuts!

Details are important; I read up a bit on the variety of rosewood Telecasters.

I don't know about Fender, but Warmoth has started to occasionally make a few rosewood bodies with the small sandwich stripe and could certainly build a Strat body that way. I've thought about building a J-bass that would match the rosewood Teles, which would be pretty slick (in a rather heavy sort of way). I've always thought that most Fenders looked like they were painted by Earl Scheib, but the real rosewood Telecasters are truly stunning bits of woodworking for production guitars. There is also a little bit of a price/value difference between the rosewood Teles that have a top built from three hunks of rosewood and those made just from two hunks - with the two-hunkers being rarer and a bit more valuable.

paologregorio wrote:I saw a guy on stage with a rosewood Strat. Anyone else seen one of those? Nuts!

http://www.themusiczoo.com/fendercustom ... 36373.html

According to Beatles Gear, the first rosewood guitars were two Strats, one meant for Jimi Hendrix (he never received it), and two Teles, one of which went to George Harrison. No wonder the Tele version became more famous, but you have to wonder what would have happened if Hendrix got his hands on a rosewood Strat...

IMHO, all Teles were made for James Burton, Don Rich, and Clarence White (and maybe Roy Buchanan).
The original Rosewood Strat is a great looking (and must have been a great sounding ) Guitar.
You have to wonder what would have happened if George Harrison had got his hands on the Rosewood Strat!
Using the Bridge and Center pick-up combination, perhaps a much cooler sounding solo on "Let It Be"...

It was bought new a couple years ago from Japan. Does that help?

No longer for sale. Dude prepped it for selling and fell in love with it again! I got pics though, will post when I have a chance. It's got black sides, no sandwiching.

Sorry if the bump gets anyone's hopes up, it's still not for sale. But I work with the guy and he was nice enough to bring it in so I could take pics for y'all. Those are plain black painted sides, no sandwiching like on the 80's ones.

Thanks! I can see why he wanted to keep it...what a beauty!