The past few years have been a wild ride and, apart from blogging and building pedal circuits, I've spent a lot of my time researching guitars that I want. B.B. King, Freddie King, Gary Moore, and Warren Haynes made me want a semi-hollow guitar, so I bought Cherrie. Joe Bonamassa and Amos made me want a korina flying v, and I always will. Now I'm delving into the world of Telecasters, and just like with the korina flying v, it's an insanely deep rabbit hole. Unlike the korina flying v, however, I don't feel like I'll never be able to obtain the genuine article. Fender have been making Telecasters forever, and there are so many choices, making this such a deep rabbit hole. I'm currently aiming at the sub $200 market, just to dip my toes. While a Fender Telecaster would be awesome, I'm currently not able to justify buying a guitar of that caliber just to play blues riffs in my bedroom.
The affordable Telecaster market is filled with options. You've got your Squiers, Harley Benton, Xavier SX, Mono Price Indio, Lyx, Donner, Glarry, no name Temu, the list goes on and on. I even debated a First Act Overtone, which is a Telecaster shaped body with Stratocaster adornments. I've seen so many brand options that I finally had to decide what features I wanted most. Ideally I want a butterscotch blackguard, string through the back, with as close to a Fender Telecaster style headstock as possible, with vintage style tuners. Narrowing down to these features took quite a few options out of contention, but there are still so many options. Then I figured parts can be changed, such as the tuners, bridge, pickguard, and pickups, which we'll discuss a little bit later. This understanding further narrowed it down even further. Now I essentially had to sift through a pile of Squiers, and that's totally fine with me because even with just one brand left there are still so many options.
Years ago I bought a Squier Affinity Strat neck from the Goodwill Outlet store, and I'm pretty sure I spent under $1 for it. The profile is a bit slim, but it's not uncomfortable, and I was impressed with the wood Squier used for the Affinity series. Looking at Squiers current Affinity series Telecaster you get a really nice deal, they even offer a butterscotch blackguard! On the used market these things are dirt cheap, and I've seen a few floating around, but there's something off about them. Upon further research the bodies and necks are thinner, and they're 21 frets instead of 22. While these aren't deal breakers, again I'm looking for the best twang for my buck here, so we'll sit the Affinity on the sidelines for now and keep looking. There are the Classic Vibes, the Vintage Modifieds and all kind of really great options, but these all come with really great option prices, so I'll keep looking.
That's when it hit me. I'm not looking for anything extraordinary, I just want something standard. That's it! For about two decades Squier made their Standard series, which included an aged blonde Telecaster at some point. Perfect! It fills all of my Telecaster needs, and what doesn't can easily be changed. You get the Fender backed quality of a Squier, a Telecaster body that strings through the back, the Telecaster headstock on a thicker neck than that Affinity series, and alnico five pickups. Which strangely makes me a bit sad, as I was hoping for something with ceramic pickups. A few years ago I bought a set of cheap, alleged, alnico five Telecaster pickups from Amazon and installed them in my cheap Peavey Rockmaster, which never filled that Telecaster shaped void I'm still trying to fill. I was hoping I could upgrade an inexpensive Telecaster to A5 pickups, but in this case I feel it would be a downgrade.
Now I know what I want, and what I'll be looking for. Again, Squier made these things for almost twenty years, so there are still a ton of options. I've already seen a few Squier Standard Telecasters on Marketplace for $200, give or take. I may still try the Amazon pickups to see how they sound, but I think Squier should already have a decent A5 pickup set inside, but we'll see. For now, I'll continue looking and wait for that right one to pop up and leave no doubt in my mind that it's the right one for me.
