“I suspect Fender decided against building Thinlines with this specification because they would have been too expensive to manufacture”: What two 1967 prototypes tell us about the evolution of the Telecaster Thinline

Both of these guitars were 1967 prototypes for a lighter version of the Telecaster that became the Thinline. The spruce-fronted model doesn’t have f-holes, but it is fully hollow, except for a block in the area where the bridge mounts, and it barely weighs 3lb.

It has three-ply binding on the front and single ply on the back, so it’s a little fancier than a regular Telecaster Custom. The spruce doesn’t have eight grain lines per inch or anything like that, but it’s not bad. There’s some lacquer checking but no cracks, and the zebra wood back looks fantastic.

The string ferrules are sunk into the body, and by 1967 they weren’t like that on production Telecasters. There’s also a little metal plate at the end of the heel where they mounted the strap button; the sides are so thin that the button would have pulled straight off the guitar if it was in its usual position. The sides are stained dark brown, so I can’t tell what they’re made from, but the thinness explains why there’s no jack plate or cup, and the jack socket is fixed through a drilled hole.

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The maple-cap neck has a very standard C-shaped profile for the transitional logo period, and the control circuit is just regular Telecaster spec for the post-1966 era. There’s no trace of wax potting, so it’s possible the pickups were lacquer potted and they’re extremely microphonic.

It’s a fancy guitar that was made to make an impression. I suspect Fender decided against building Thinlines with this specification because they would have been too expensive to manufacture. Instead, they went for ash and mahogany, and sometimes combinations of both.

Despite appearances, I think the green prototype is far closer to what Fender was trying to achieve and it has a lot of interesting features. The bridge and vibrato are from a Mustang, and they cut down a Telecaster bridge plate then elevated it on three rubber bushings. I can’t imagine why they experimented with a decoupled pickup holder, but it actually plays really well and sounds exactly like a Thinline Telecaster.

The neck is a Jazzmaster blank with crushed pearl inlays and a no-decal headstock face that’s painted green to match the wildwood ash body. The sides are painted Sherwood Green and the fretboard is heavily lacquered. It has faded very slightly, but the colour remains strong.

With two f-holes, I think they struggled with mounting the controls, and there’s a huge three-way toggle switch – I’ve never seen one on any other guitar, but it’s good quality. The strings load through the body and it has a standard jack cup. I think they just decided to make this prototype with whatever parts they had laying about the shop.

Apparently, Fender had to source the coloured wildwoods overseas because the environmental protection agency prohibited injecting dyes into living trees. This could be an old wives’ tale, but I’m told the wood came from Sweden or Switzerland. This guitar is also light, but the additional components and the fact that it’s not spruce make it heavier than the other one. I can’t say I find it attractive, but I do find it very cool.

Roger Rossmeisl had been put in charge of making a lightweight Telecaster and he originally planned to make a very small archtop, but the cost factors would have been too great. Phil Kubicki [was made assistant to Rossmeisl in the R&D department] at Fender in [the late ’60s], and I think both these guitars reek of his work.

I’ve owned quite a few guitars made by Phil and I can recognise the patterns. The green one may not have been the final Thinline prototype, but I can guarantee it was close to the end of the process.

I’m sure when they made the body, they routed out the cavity and glued the back on last. When we had to pull the pots out to verify the dates, it took way over an hour because everything had to exit through the bridge pickup hole. Both read as the eighth week of 1966, which is pretty common because Fender bought a huge number of pots that were made that week and used them for years afterwards.

Fender would often hang onto prototypes for a very long time, and a lot of them ended up getting dumped onto the market in the late ’70s and early ’80s. That’s when they started appearing in books, but I’ve never seen any others like these two.

• Vintage guitar veteran David Davidson owns Well Strung Guitars in Farmingdale, New York / 001 (516) 221-0563
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.