1969 FENDER ESQUIRE

1969 Fender Esquire, in excellent original condition.

This beautiful and rare model comes from the same line as the Fender Telecaster – the two are almost identical, with the exception of their electronics. Where the Telecaster has 2 single coil pickups, the Esquire only has the bridge pickup with an alternate wiring scheme: in the 1st position of the selector, the signal passes through a fixed low-pass filter with the volume control, in the 2nd position the signal passes through a volume control and adjustable tone control, in the 3rd position the raw signal from the pickup goes straight to the jack with a volume control. Despite the simplicity of this configuration, it allows for three tone presets – from full bandwidth to a more muffled sound at position 1. Originally, it was a slightly more affordable version of the Telecaster, the single pickup configuration allowing Fender to price it lower – in 1969 it could be bought for $224.5, versus $279.5 for a Telecaster – even though the rest of the instruments are perfectly identical.

The example shown is here one of the very last Esquires in the original series, as Fender-CBS ceased production shortly thereafter – its popularity was indeed free-falling with the proliferation of entry-level models such as the Mustang, introduced in 1964 , in addition to having spent twenty years in the shadow of the hegemony of the much more versatile Telecasters. Following CBS’s ruthless economic logic, the Esquire took its final bow in early 1970. This guitar has all the typical markers of late-60s era Fenders: the bold black Fender logo, extremely rare on Esquires since it is only present in 1969 and 1970, F-stamped tuners, one-piece maple neck with the skunk stripe covering the route for the truss-rod… Blonde finish showing very little wear, pickup and completely original electronics. Complete professional setup done in our workshop, ready to play.

Sold in its original Fender hardshell case, ash-tray cover included.