Fender’s American Vintage II Series
It’s a little difficult to separate fact from fiction given these guitars aren’t easy to get your hands on. Fender Telecasters manufactured in the 1950s and 1960s sell for upwards of $20,000. But old is about to become new again. Fender’s American Vintage II series features 12 year-specific electric guitar and bass models from over two decades, spanning 1951 to 1977, that replicate most specs on their original counterparts, but are produced with modern technologies that ensure uniform build and feel.
Chronologically, the series begins and ends, fittingly, with the Telecaster—starting with the butterscotch blonde, blackguard 1951 Telecaster (built with an ash body, one-piece U-shaped maple neck, and 7.25" radius fretboard) and ending with the 1977 Telecaster Custom, which features a C-shaped neck, a CuNiFe magnet-based Wide Range humbucker in the neck position, and a single-coil at the bridge. The rest of the series spans the highlights of Fender’s repertoire: the 1954 Precision Bass, 1957 Stratocaster in ash or alder, 1960 Precision Bass, 1961 Stratocaster, 1963 Telecaster, 1966 Jazz Bass, 1966 Jazzmaster, 1972 Tele Thinline, 1973 Strat, and 1975 Telecaster Deluxe. The 1951 Telecaster, 1957 Strat, 1961 Strat, and 1966 Jazz Bass will also be offered as left-handed models. Street prices run from $2,099 to $2,399.
Fender '72 American Vintage II Telecaster Thinline Demo | First Look
Spec’d To Please
Every guitar in the series sports the era’s 7.25" radius fretboard, a mostly abandoned spec found on Custom Shop instruments—Mexico-made Vintera models, and Fender’s Artist Series guitars like the Jimmy Page, Jason Isbell, and Albert Hammond Jr. models. Most modern Fenders feature a 9.5" radius, while radii on Gibsons reach upwards of 12". Videos experimenting with the 7.25" radius’ playability pull in tens of thousands of viewers, suggesting both a modern fascination with and a lack of exposure to the radius among some younger and less experienced players.
T.J. Osborne of the Brothers Osborne picks an American Vintage II 1966 Jazzmaster in Dakota red.
Bringing back the polarizing 7.25" radius across the entire series is a gamble, and it’s been nearly five years since Fender released year-specific models. But Fender executive vice president Justin Norvell says that two years ago when the Fender brain trust was conceptualizing the American Vintage II line, they decided the time was right to “go back to the well.”
“We’ve been doing the same [models], the same years, over and over again for 30 years,” says Norvell. “We really wanted to change the line and expand it into some new things that we hadn’t done before and pick some different years that we thought were cool.”
“It takes a lot of doing to go back in time and sort of uncover the secret-sauce recipes.”—Steve Thomas, Fender
To decide on which years to produce, Fender drew from what Norvell calls a “huge cauldron of information” from Custom Shop master builders to collectors with vintage models to former employees from the 1950s and 1960s. The hands-on manufacturing of Fender’s golden years meant guitars produced within the same year would have marked differences in design and finish. So, the team had to procure multiple versions of the same year’s guitar to decide which models to replicate. Norvell says some purists would advocate for the “cleanest, most down-the-middle kind of variant,” while others would push for more esoteric and rare versions. Norvell says that ultimately, the team picked the models that they felt best represented “the throughline of history on our platforms.”
Simple and agile, the Fender Precision Bass—here in its new American Vintage II ’54 incarnation—earned its reputation in the hands of Bill Black, James Jamerson, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and other foundational players.
Norvell says the American Vintage II series was developed, in part, in response to calls to reproduce vintage guitars. Just like with classic cars, he says, people are passionate about year-specific guitars. Plus, American Vintage II fits perfectly with the pandemic-stoked yearning for bygone times. “For some people, these specific years are representative of experiences they had when they were first playing guitar, or a favorite artist that played guitars from these eras,” says Norvell. “These are touchstones for those stories, and that makes them very desirable.”
Cracking Codes
Fender’s electric guitar research and design team, led by director Steve Thomas, dug through the company’s archive of original drawings and designs—dating all the way back to Leo Fender’s original shop in Fullerton, California. They found detailed notes, including some documenting body woods that changed mid-year on certain models. Halfway through 1956, for example, Stratocaster bodies switched from ash to alder. That meant the American Vintage II 1957 Stratocaster needed to be alder, too. That, in turn, meant ensuring enough alder was on hand to fulfill production needs.
Among the series’ Stratocaster recreations is this 1973-style instrument, with an ash body, maple C-profile neck, rosewood fretboard, and the company’s Pure Vintage single-coils.
Thomas and his team discovered another piece of the production puzzle when researching how pickups for that same 1957 Strat were made. “We realized that if we incorporated a little bit more pinch control on the winders, we could more effectively mimic the way pickups would have been hand-wound in the ’50s,” says Thomas. “It takes a lot of doing to go back in time and sort of uncover the secret-sauce recipes.”
Thomas proudly calls the guitars “some of the best instruments we’ve ever made here in the Fender plant,” pointing to the level of detail put into design features, including more delicate lacquer finishes which take longer to cure and dry, and vintage-correct tweed cases for some guitars. New pickups were incorporated in the series, like a reworking of Seth Lover’s famed CuNiFe Wide Range humbuckers, which were discontinued around 1981. Even more minute details, like the width of 12th fret dots and the material used for them, were labored over. Three different models in the line feature clay dot inlays at unique, year-specific spacings.
Ironically, modern CNC manufacturing now makes these design quirks consistent features in mass-produced instruments. While the hand-crafted guitars from the ’50s and ’60s varied a lot from instrument to instrument. “Everything needs to be located perfectly, and it wasn’t necessarily back in the day,” says Norvell. “Now, it can be.”
Don’t Look Back
With this new series so firmly planted in the rose-tinted past, Fender does run the risk of netting only vintage-obsessed players. But Norvell says the team, despite being sticklers for period-correct detail, sought to strike a balance between vintage specs, practicality, and playability. The 1957 Stratocaster, for example, has a 5-way switch rather than the original’s 3-way switch. Norvell also asserts that the “ergonomic” old-school radius feels great when chording. “It might not be [right for] a shred machine, but it feels great and effortless.”
The 1966 Jazz Bass is also represented, shown here in a left-handed version.
Norvell also pushes back on the notion that Fender is playing it safe by indulging nostalgia and leaning on their past successes. He says that while the vintage models are some of the most desirable on the market, the team “purposely did not stick to the safe bets,” citing unusual year models like the 1954 P Bass and the 1973 Stratocaster.
There’s a good reason why anything that hails back to “the good ol’ days” hits home with every generation. We’re constantly plagued by a belief that what came before is better than what we’ve got now. But with the American Vintage II series, Fender makes the case that guitars from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s can very easily be a relevant part of the 2020s.![Rig Rundown: Joe Bonamassa [2022]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-joe-bonamassa.jpg?id=31202568&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
After moving back to New York City, Joe Bonamassa spent some lockdown time in Germano Studios in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, tightly winding the music for his latest album, Time Clocks. His longtime producer Joe Shirley had to work with the powerhouse guitarist remotely, from his home in Australia. Yet the result is as seamlessly Bonamassa as ever, with riveting guitar work that has echoes ranging from Africa to Led Zeppelin. “My ADD transcends into my musical life,” the other JB told longtime Premier Guitar contributor Joe Charupakorn in our December feature. “It’s a very different record for me. It’s not a blues record, for sure. I just try to make records that don’t bore me all the way through—we’ve got this groove covered, we’ve got that groove covered, let’s put a sorbet in, something out of left field.”
They don’t serve sorbet at Nashville’s hallowed Ryman Auditorium music hall—although I’m putting that in their suggestion box. But Bonamassa did dish out plenty of guitar flambé at his August 2 headliner there. And melded the music of Time Clocks with a selection of some of his favorite classic and original blues. PG’s JB—that’s me—connected with Joe onstage before the show, where I also did a Rig Rundown with that other guy with my initials in 2018.
This time, there were some new members of Bonamassa’s ever-growing-and-shrinking collection of gear—which he spoke about at length earlier this year with Cory Wong on the rhythm guitar kingpin’s Wong Notes podcast for PG—pressed into service, including some recent-arrival Les Pauls, of course, and perhaps the most covetable collection of historic badass amps ever played on the Ryman stage. But rareness, novelty, or familiarity isn’t what determines which toys come out to play. Bonamassa starts by building a rough set list, and then chooses the right instrument and amps for each song. So, watch, look, and listen!
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High-Flying “B”
Joe’s 1968 Fender Telecaster Thinline has a B-bender and a Seymour Duncan the Bludgeon pickup set. The new pickup outfit is patterned after the distinctive sounding ones in JB’s ’51 Nocaster and are going into production soon. The maestro strings most of his electrics with Ernie Ball .011 to .052 sets.
Ol’ ’55
Here’s another 1955 Strat in the fleet, joining the hardtail the JB’s named “the Best.” He keeps this one tuned to D and it's stringed with a slightly heavier gauge of Ernie Balls: .011 to .056.
A Bonnie Strat
That ain’t vandalism. It’s love and friendship. Joe asked his friend Bonnie Bramlett, the vocalist who made rock and roots history as half of the famed duo Delaney and Bonnie, to engrave her name on this 1955 Fender Stratocaster—which is now known as “Bonnie.”
About Face, ’55
Here’s the front side of the “Bonnie” Strat.
Les Paul for Sale
JB was asked to play this 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard on tour until it is auctioned off for charity. The auction has yet to be announced. And while ’58s and ’59s have long been consider the Holy Grail of Les Paul, anyone who’s heard Clapton’s tone on the so-called Beano album knows that ’60s are also the bomb. Coming up on the collectability scale: late ’60s Pauls. Don’t believe it? Play one!
A Great ’58
This 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard is a recent purchase. At some point the original tuners were swapped out for Schallers, and that’s how Joe’s kept it.
The Les Paul Under the Stairs
Dig this early 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which Joe has named “Royal Albert.” It was recently found in an under-the-stairs cupboard in England. After a bit of work and the addition of some PAFs, it’s got a new life on tour.
For Another $20….
What’s the difference between Gibson’s ES-335 and ES-355? Back in the day, in practical terms, it was 20 bucks. But another difference is that the 355 and the 345 came in stereo-wired versions. And the optional Varitone circuitry—Gibson’s chicken-head-dial-controlled tone filter—for ES-355 models was typically standard. That makes this all-stock 1964 Gibson ES-355 very rare. There’s no Varitone and it came wired out of the factory in mono.
Bicentennial ’Bird
It ain’t no eagle, but this all-stock 1976 Gibson Firebird Bicentennial salutes in open G. They were only issued for three years and sell for $5,000 plus these days. Plus, this special run were all adorned with a white pickguard where a red-white-and-blue Firebird logo nests.
Amos the Imposter
The Gibson Custom Shop provided Bonamassa this detailed replica of his remarkable, all-original 1958 Gibson Flying V. Check out the run Epiphone did on the historic V back in 2017.
Back in Black
This 1955—that year again!—Stratocaster may be the first black Fender Strat. It was formerly owned by Howard Reed, the guitarist who replaced Cliff Gallup in Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps. Back in 1988, an 11-year-old Joe had a poster of this very guitar on his bedroom wall, and now he owns it. For the past several years, this guitar has made JB’s annual trip to the Ryman and you can visit the black ’55 any time you enter the Mother Church.
Adventures in Ampland
Seven amazing amps? Yeah, that should do it. And Joe combines them to recreate all the sterling tones on his albums. There’s a 1979 Dumble Overdrive Special running into a 2x12 Dumble Cab with JB-85 Celestions. The speakers are rated at 85 watts, natch, and 8 ohms, and are among the loudest speakers Celestion’s ever made. JB’s 2006 Dumble Overdrive Special combo blasts through the same-model speaker. There’s a Mesa/Boogie Revolver rotary speaker cabinet in the mix, too, with a single JB-85, and an ’84 Overdrive Special with the same. Two of his signature Fender Twin Reverbs figure in, and while these usually come in tweed, Joe had this pair tuxedo’d in black.
Four off the Floor
And if you’ve had trouble finding Marshall Silver Jubilee 100-watt heads lately, it might be because Bonamassa has four of them, running two at a time into a Van Weelden 4x12 cab, split internally to run as two 2x12s juiced with EVM12Ls.
More Marshalls
Joe Bonamassa’s Pedalboard
JB keeps a very orderly guitar pedalboard. It’s currently stocked with a Way Huge Overrated Special, a Tone Mechanics/Racksystems Loop Box, a Tone Mechanics/Racksystems Splitter, a Fulltone Supa-Trem, a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, an MXR Micro Flanger, an Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, a Dunlop Joe Bonamassa Fuzz Face, a Lehle A/B/C switcher, a Dunlop signature Cry Baby Wah in Pelham blue, and an on/off/fast/slow dual switch for the Mesa Boogie Revolver. Juice comes from a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus. Joe uses KLOTZ cables and custom Dunlop Jazz III picks.
Classic to-the-bone Fender: a 1952 blackguard Tele and a ’53 Pro amp.
The Telecaster featured in this article almost didn’t survive 2022. Earlier this year, two brothers with a house-flipping business were clearing a home of debris and getting it ready to renovate. One of the brothers was about to toss a dirty wooden object he had found in a closet into the dumpster. The other brother realized it was an electric guitar. Fortunately, he decided it would be a good idea to have the caseless, dirty, beat-up instrument appraised. By doing this, he saved an original 1952 Fender Telecaster from being destroyed!
The cleaned and detailed headstock of this guitar boasts Kluson tuners and a round string tree.
That 1952 Telecaster has TG-6-6-52 penciled on the end of its neck, indicating employee Tadeo Gomez completed it in June of 1952. The date penciled in the neck pocket area of the body is 6-3-52. The guitar has the classic characteristics of a 1952 Tele, including a transparent butterscotch blonde finish over an ash body, a single-ply black phenolite (also known as Bakelite) pickguard—making it a so-called blackguard Tele, a bridge pickup with level pole pieces (Fender moved to staggered pole pieces during 1955), and a 3-way switch.
The current value for one in excellent all-original condition is $40,000.
At the time this guitar was built, Fender’s wiring scheme activated the bridge pickup in the number 1 position, the neck pickup in number 2, and with the selector all the way up in position 3, the signal runs through a capacitor that adds bass. Remember, back in those days a single guitarist often played bass lines as well as chords, melodies, and solos in many bands. The P bass was introduced only a year before this guitar was made and was a new instrument still trying to find its place in the music world.
This instrument has a through-body bridge, three adjustable bridge pieces, and a pickup that looks like a relic, but sounds like a dream.
The 1-piece maple neck has narrow-spaced position markers at the 12th fret (the dot spacing became wider between 1953 and 1963), a round string tree (which went rectangular in 1956), and Kluson “no brand” tuners. The tuners were stamped with “Kluson Deluxe” in a single line by 1957. The 1952 list price was $189.50. The current value for one in excellent all-original condition is $40,000.
It’s unclear who the “Davis” is that signed this neck pocket in 1952. Famed Fender employee Charlie Davis didn’t start at the Fullerton plant until 1957.
The amp supporting the Tele is a wide-panel Fender Pro from 1953. It’s equipped with a Jensen P15N 15" speaker, dated to the 20th week of 1953, and powered by two 6L6 tubes capable of about 18 to 25 watts of power. Two inputs are controlled by a mic volume knob, and two inputs are controlled by an instrument volume knob. In addition to the on/off switch, this amp is equipped with a standby. The 1953 list price was $199.50. The current value for the amp is $3,500.
Sources for this article include The Blackguard by Nacho Baños, The Pinecaster by Nacho Baños and Lynn Wheelwright, The Fender Telecaster by A.R. Duchossoir, and Fender Amps: The First Fifty Years by John Teagle and John Sprung.