SOLD!!!! Fender Telecaster (tm) 1962 Reissue FotoFlame SOLD!!!
I got this guitar in a trade for 1960's RI sunburst/rosewood Strat. The Strat was great, but I just never played it and when I did want a Strat, I've got my black Tex Mex Strat which is already "worn-in", whereas the 60'sRI was almost mint condition. So, when the opportunity came to trade for this guitar, I went for it. Now I've got a maple neck and rosewood necked Tele.
As with my James Burton Standard Tele, I had to make some changes! The previous, previous owner of the Fotoflame had changed the stock 3-saddle bridge to a 6-saddle American Standard copy. Yuck. I'd replaced the stock 6-pos, but old-style bridge on the JB, so I had that handy. I also had the JB's stock TexMex Tele bridge p'up available and I ran that for awhile. The stock Fotoflame pups were typical Japanese junk with bar magnets and underwound.
If you know anything about Teles, you're looking at the picture above thinking, "Wait, those ain't no TexMex pups!", and you're right. Before long, I wrangled a killer deal on a set of Red Rhode's Velvet Hammer pups from Stringpull. These are THE pups that the great Clarence White used while with the Byrds. I originally put them in my JB Tele since it does, after all, have the B-bender in it, but I dunno, they just sound better in this guitar, and that's where they live now. The VH's pups are pretty hot pickups with very good response. You can play softer with your right hand and the volume goes down- play harder and up it goes. They have better response than the '52RI/TexMex pups in my JB. They come wired with a 4-way switch and a toggle that cuts the secondary lead coil in and out. After a month or so, I pulled the toggle out and just use the 4-way switch, which gives me PLENTY of tone options: bridge, neck/bridge in parallel, neck, neck/bridge in series. The two extreme positions HONK!
This Tele also came with a white guard and I just don't like white guards, so I stuck on a black pearloid guard:
I had a lot of trouble with static crackle with the plastic pickguards so I had a friend make me a leather pickguard which I used up till the time I sold the guitar
In case you've never seen one before, here's the back and sides of the Fotoflame. Notice how the flame overlay is just a cap.
And here's the headstock with the official Fotoflame decal:
I liked this Tele and used it more as a blues/rock Tele, compared to the more traditional sounding JB Tele. However, this meant that I almost never played my Strat and I love the neck on the Strat so it seemed a shame to let it go to waste. Plus, I really wanted to swap parts around with my JB Tele and see what effect the neck had and such. Unfortunately, Japanese Fenders are just slightly off from their American/Mexican cousins and this plan was stymied. So I sold it!