The Road Worn finishes here are described as nitrocellulose lacquer and both are obviously very thin, with visible grain sinkage on both bodies. “The AGEING appearS a little more nuanced than ON the original Road Worn finishes of a decade ago”īoth Firemist Gold and Lake Placid Blue metallics were originally Lucite (acrylic), though you’ve doubtless seen vintage examples of Lake Placid Blue on which the clear nitrocellulose top coat has yellowed to give the guitar a green hue almost indistinguishable from Ocean Turquoise. We’ve seen a vintage Jazzmaster in the flesh with a padauk veneer ’board that looked very similar in tone to the slab of pau ferro used here. Although some may baulk at the light-brown appearance of the pau ferro ’board and long for the rich dark-chocolate hue of a Brazilian rosewood original, it’s worth noting that Fender briefly experimented with alternatives to rosewood in the early-to-mid 1960s. In combination with the earlier-style mint green pickguard, it’s undoubtedly a very attractive look. Our ’50s Telecaster comes in a vivid shade of Lake Placid Blue, a colour which featured on the cover of the Cadillac catalogue in 1958 and was officially added to the Fender lineup when the custom colour chart was first issued in 1960.īattle scars: tasteful scuffs and scratches adorn the Tele’s Lake Placid Blue bodyįiremist Gold was a 1965 debutante and it features here on the ’60s Stratocaster. The company has had fun with the finish options, offering custom colours that originally appeared in the 1960s on its ’50s Strat and Tele. Like with the other models in the Vintera series, rather than slavishly recreating instruments from specific model years, Fender has amalgamated a variety of features to evoke the spirit of an era. Hit the road: the artificial wear on the Tele’s ’board is nicely understatedīack in 2009, UK retail prices for Road Worn models started at £859, so the £999 price tag on both of our review guitars feels very reasonable – we’d wager that the cost of most commodities has risen by a great deal more than 16 per cent over the past 11 years, even if many people’s wages haven’t. A 60th Anniversary Road Worn Jazz Bass was also unveiled for 2020 – we’ll take the Firemist Silver version with tortoiseshell guard, please – but there’s no new Road Worn P-Bass just yet.
Offsets and a ’60s Telecaster have yet to be announced but will almost certainly follow in 2021. “Looking for a vintage-style Strat or Tele? The Vintera Road Worns offer the best bang for your buck in the current Fender catalogue” The first 2020 batch of Vintera Road Worn models contains ’50s and ’60s Strats, a ’50s Tele and a ’70s Telecaster Deluxe. Road Worns briefly disappeared from the Fender catalogue in 2019 following the reorganisation of the company’s Mexican-made reissues into a new Vintera line consisting only of guitars with pristine gloss polyester finishes, but we didn’t have to wait too long for Road Worns to return.
#DON RICH TELECASTER PICKUPS SERIES#
Present and correct: both the Road Worn Tele and Strat sport vintage-style tunersįender’s original Road Worn series arrived in 2009, making the played-in look and feel of an old Strat or Tele something much more accessible to the masses by taking the ageing knowhow of the Custom Shop and applying it to production-line guitars made in the company’s Ensenada factory in Baja California, Mexico. That’s all well and good, but what if you don’t have the funds for a vintage instrument, or the inclination to wait several decades for the boxfresh nitro finish on your new guitar to take on a vintage patina? A quarter of a century on from Winter NAMM 1995, when Fender first introduced Relic guitars to the world, factory ageing is still the topic most likely to set guitar forums and social media ablaze.Īlthough Relics have been both a huge Fender success story and enormously influential in the wider industry – everything from effects pedals to capos can now be purchased with a distressed finish – there’s no doubt that a vocal minority in the guitar community prefers its wear and tear to be the result of years of hard gigging.