Fender Classic Series 50's Esquire

robdynamite

Basically, what are these like?

I'm no where near anywhere that has one in stock to try, but i was completely unaware they made an "affordable" esquire and i want in on it! haha.

Has anyone owned/currently own one? Could you give me some insight into them? 

Cheers!

andy1839

I had a white one that you could see the grain though. Stunning neck, the single pickup was rubbish, so budget to replace that.

Also it's routed for a neck pickup under the guard so you can turn it into a 'real' tele should you wish.

I found the tones weren't inspiring, positions 2 & 3 were very indistinct, I think it was designed to do rhythm on those settings and then back to position 1 for single note stuff.

If I were to have one again I'd probably change the pickup for one that can be tapped for hot/vintage and wire up the switch for tapping the coil.

Bottom line, nice guitar, brilliantly made, but look to swap the pickup to something better. It was really it's only let down.

chrisj1602

I've not had the Esquire but I've had several Classic Series guitars snd they have all been really nice. I agree about upgrading the pickups though.

Another option is to find a Tele you like, get an Esquire pick guard and re-wire it.

thermionic

It's a Classic 50s Tele minus a pickup. Although I replaced the pickups in my 50s Tele with Custom Shop Nocasters, they weren't that much of an improvement on the originals imho.

The body weights (some can be heavy) and the neck shape can vary a lot, based on two I tried in different shops on the same day.

streethawk

thermionic said:

It's a Classic 50s Tele minus a pickup. Although I replaced the pickups in my 50s Tele with Custom Shop Nocasters, they weren't that much of an improvement on the originals imho.

The body weights (some can be heavy) and the neck shape can vary a lot, based on two I tried in different shops on the same day.

Also the wiring and best of all - it says esquire on the headstock. 

ICBM

I tried one a few months ago and apart from the quite 'v' neck which I didn't like, I thought it was the best Tele I've played below US Custom Shop level. It was built extremely well and had the right 'ring' acoustically. I didn't think the pickup was bad, even - it's very much a low-output vintage Tele pickup, for all the good and bad things that is.

I would probably modify the switching by removing it since I don't find either of the front or back settings useful, and the switch gets right in the way, for me. Pickup, volume, tone and jack is all it needs.

streethawk

I've got an Oil City 49'er ready to go into my esquire build. Made a repro bakelite guard.

I'm also building up some esquire harnesses with the cocked wah mod. 

Just need a body and neck. 

robdynamite

yeah i've heard the pickup isn't much cop but the build and feel is supposed to be great.

how bad is the stock pickup? i mainly play a ac/dc esque rock with a les paul but i've always wanted a tele and i would like something that can give a good bit of beef.

EdGrip

I should think the pickup is good enough to do the job while you keep one eye on the classifieds and save up for an exciting replacement. (One that has a good reputation for beefy Tele rock is the Bareknuckle "The Boss", which come up from time to time for ~£40 used. Your friendly forum-dwelling British pickup winder-wonders won't charge all that much more for a new one in a similar vein.)

StuartMac290

Not cheap, but I love the idea of this:

http://www.kleinpickups.com/p-150-tri-state-telecaster-bridge.aspx

Loobs

I like the stock pickup in it. It's very very bright. Apparently it's without a base plate, can anyone shed any light on that?

benecol

If it's the same as the pickups they put in the '69 thinlines, then there's no baseplate, and they sound amazing. Possibly my favourite ever tele pickup, and it's not even made right (purism-wise).

OilCityPickups

Loobs said:

I like the stock pickup in it. It's very very bright. Apparently it's without a base plate, can anyone shed any light on that?

Base plates 'darken' a pickup ... so that figures.

robdynamite

cool! some interesting input here, i might have to bite the bullet and get one, i love the white blonde but i'm tempted to get a black and black 3 ply pickguard it, but i'm struggling to picture whether or not i'd like it!

plus i had one in my basket this morning on GAK and they emailed me earlier offering me a discount if i rang up, anyone had this before? I'm not a big "use the phone" person so i've not rang them yet and like i said still undecided on colour.

EdGrip

Go for the discount if you do decide to get one!

Philly_Q

robdynamite said:

plus i had one in my basket this morning on GAK and they emailed me earlier offering me a discount if i rang up, anyone had this before? I'm not a big "use the phone" person so i've not rang them yet and like i said still undecided on colour.

Interesting.  I wonder why they'd offer a discount for ringing up?  It's not like an "off eBay" transaction where they might want to save on selling fees and PayPal charges.

I'm not a big phone person either, but I generally do with music shops because (a) there's usually some detail I want to check, (b) I don't trust them to actually have things in stock and (c) it's always worth asking if there's any chance of a further discount.