Models made prior to 2004 featured two Fender Vintage Noiseless Tele single-coils, Fender/Fishman Powerbridge piezo system and four-bolt neck fixing. The bridge has three adjustable saddles, with strings doubled up on each. Wheeler, Tom (et al. The Highway One Telecaster (introduced in 2000) featured a pair of distortion-friendly alnico III, single-coil pickups, super-sized 22 frets, Greasebucket circuit, satin nitrocellulose finish, and 1970s styling font(since 2006). First, a true tone control knob was installed, that could be used to alter the tone from bass-heavy (in the 0 position) to treble-heavy (in the 10 position). "Brad Paisley Joins Fender Artist Signature Series With Brad Paisley Road Worn Telecaster Guitar." While retaining such features from the Highway One as jumbo frets, changing to a 9.5 radius neck, Greasebucket tone circuit and 1970s logo, the American Special also includes some upgrades such as a glossy urethane finish, compensated brass 3-saddle bridge and Highway One Texas Tele pickups (alnico III). It features a mahogany body, two P-90 style single-coil pickups, individual volume and tone controls and the three-way pickup selector in the upper horn position. The Custom Classic Telecaster was the Custom Shop version of the American Series Tele, featuring a pair of Classic and Twisted single-coils in the bridge and neck positions, as well as a reverse control plate. This model also had 2 volume and 2 tone control knobs on the front of the guitar, rather than the usual 1 of each.[6]. The Plus utilizes a pine body, a standard Telecaster pickup in the neck position, a reverse wound single-coil Stratocaster-style pickup in the middle position and a humbucker in the bridge position. The original switch and knob configuration was used from 1950 to 1952. Since this, Fender has developed even more in the way of pickups and tones for the telecaster, with changes from Alnico III magnets to Alnico V magnets. The Telecaster has always had a three-position selector switch to allow for different pickup configurations, as well as two knobs for controlling volume and tone. In around September 1951, Fender renamed the guitar to Telecaster and started placing these decals on the headstock. Most Telecasters have two single-coil pickups, a pickup selector switch, a single volume control and a single tone control. Fender offered factory hot-rodded Teles with such pickup configurations, the US Fat and Nashville B-Bender Telecasters around 1998. The bridge pickup has more windings than the neck pickup, hence producing higher output, which compensates for a lower amplitude of vibration of the strings at the bridge position. Models made prior to 2004 featured two Fender Vintage Noiseless Tele single-coils, Fender/Fishman Powerbridge piezo system and four-bolt neck fixing. (Rickenbacker, then spelled "Rickenbacher", also offered a solid Bakelite-bodied electric Spanish guitar in 1935 that seemed to presage details of Fender's design. Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, built a crude wooden guitar as a pickup test rig, local country players started asking to borrow it for gigs. Kerslake, Travis. The Fender Highway One series came in both maple and rosewood fretboards. They removed the "dark circuit" from the first position, and installed what has become the standard twin pickup switching system: neck pickup alone with tone control in the first position, both pickups together with the tone control in the middle position and in the third position the bridge pickup alone with the tone control.[8]. www.vintageelectric.com.au. This guitar was among the latest CBS-era Fenders to feature a BiFlex truss-rod system, low-friction EasyGlider string trees and active electronics. While this has changed over time with new reincarnations of the guitar,[4] this was a highly unorthodox approach in its day as guitars traditionally featured rosewood or ebony fingerboards glued onto mahogany necks. Leo Fender's Telecaster was the design that made bolt-on neck, solid body guitars viable in the marketplace. The pickguard was first Bakelite, soon thereafter it was celluloid (later other plastics), screwed directly onto the body with five (later eight) screws. It is made in the USA and was produced as a custom guitar. That hand-built prototype, an unbranded white guitar with no model name, had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster.