Tell me about this fender telecaster

frictionfraction

Friend of mine lost her husband a few years ago in a car accident.  He had this hanging on his wall though he didn’t play.  She asked me if I knew anything about the guitar and not being much of a collector I said no but knew some guys who would. So please have a look at the pics and let me know what you can tell me about it ..... other than its blank and has some very old strings!!!! .., and yes someone had taken a chisel to it to fit a humbucker at one point in its life I assume. 
https://imgur.com/gallery/1yQpC7p

Adam_MD

Looks like a mid 70s standard to me though I’m fully expecting someone more knowledgable to come and along and say I’m wrong :-)

Edit - I just noticed the binding so it’s a custom.  The serial starts with a 5 so ‘75 tele custom? 

alexmitchell17

I'm no expert tbh but this article I found would suggest it's from 1975 judging by the serial number.. Hope this helps looks pretty sweet anyway!

https://reverb.com/uk/news/how-to-date-a-fender

Funkfingers

Adam_MD said:

Looks like a mid 70s standard to me though I’m fully expecting someone more knowledgable to come and along and say I’m wrong :-)

Edit - I just noticed the binding so it’s a custom.  The serial starts with a 5 so ‘75 tele custom? 

Okay. You are wrong.

Looks to me like a hotchpotch of American CBS/Fender and Fender (Japan) parts. (The controls are Japanese.) 

The curve of the upper bout meets the neck at the seventeenth fret. On a CBS-era Telecaster, the body shape went a bit wonky. Consequently, the bout meets the neck between the sixteenth and seventeenth frets.

Once upon a time, a Fender Telecaster or Esquire with binding had the word Custom added to the beginning of its name. In the Seventies, a largely different design had the word Custom added to the end of its name. It was never offered with binding.

ICBM

It's a '72-'75 standard Telecaster with binding fitted on the front edge and refinished. It's not a Custom Tele body since they're bound on both the front and back edges. The pickups, switch and tone cap aren't original either, but the pots might be - can't see clearly enough to be certain.

frictionfraction

ICBM said:

It's a '72-'75 standard Telecaster with binding fitted on the front edge and refinished. It's not a Custom Tele body since they're bound on both the front and back edges. The pickups, switch and tone cap aren't original either, but the pots might be - can't see clearly enough to be certain.

I really appreciate all your input. It looks poorly “refinished” and the binding is not great.  So the big question is what do I tell her it’s worth? A few hundred? 

JD50

frictionfraction said:

ICBM said:

It's a '72-'75 standard Telecaster with binding fitted on the front edge and refinished. It's not a Custom Tele body since they're bound on both the front and back edges. The pickups, switch and tone cap aren't original either, but the pots might be - can't see clearly enough to be certain.

I really appreciate all your input. It looks poorly “refinished” and the binding is not great.  So the big question is what do I tell her it’s worth? A few hundred? 

Does it play well, sound good?

HarrySeven

Ooooh...just my kind of FrankenTele.

ICBM

frictionfraction said:

It looks poorly “refinished” and the binding is not great.  So the big question is what do I tell her it’s worth? A few hundred? 

Yes - probably no more than half what the ‘going rate’ for the same year in good original condition is. Even the neck isn’t in great shape despite not being modified - it may have been refretted, but if so it’s been done quite well. The nut is certainly not original but that barely matters!

It’s really a question of what someone will pay if they think it looks cool and/or has some restoration potential - it doesn’t have much inherent ‘vintage value’ now.