Guitar Gear Forum

Traded a 2001 USA Natural Ash Strat with Wagner pups for a 2004 USA Tele with Custom Shop '51 NoCaster pups. After some poking around I think the guitar was a Standard that someone put a Highway 1 body on and upgraded the pups. Both neck and body are dated '04 but standards didn't come in this satin color and Highway 1's had different hardware.

I'm fucking glad they did because this is a really nice, natural looking burst and the feel and sound of the guitar is really incredible. Way above average. The Strat was also way above average but I never bonded with it proper. Perfect trade

The verb unit was $200 and is pretty nice, surprisingly. Even at max volume it doesn't wash out like every Fender amp. It can get a long tail but the dry signal doesn't disappear. Pretty cool.

I have two MIJ Teles in that color that have binding, so it's weird for me to see a sunburst without binding.

As for weird old gear, I'm all for it. I'm assuming it has springs inside. I don't have anything weird and old.

yes, this look like a 2004 Highway 1 Tele. Why do you think it's just the Hwy1 body and not the whole guitar? The neck also looks correct for a Hwy1 of that era. The only thing that is off is the 6 saddle bridge instead of the 3 saddle, but that was probably replaced when they replaced the pickups. They're great guitars, nonetheless.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 9:00 pm yes, this look like a 2004 Highway 1 Tele. Why do you think it's just the Hwy1 body and not the whole guitar? The neck also looks correct for a Hwy1 of that era. The only thing that is off is the 6 saddle bridge instead of the 3 saddle, but that was probably replaced when they replaced the pickups. They're great guitars, nonetheless.

Alot of HWY1 Teles have different headstock graphics. But now that I’m looking again maybe those were different years.

Maybe it is just a different bridge plate. Maybe they preferred the 6 saddles over the 3 barrels for ease of intonation. Lotta people scoff at the 6 saddles too… NOT A TELE!!

I'm all for the modern 6 saddle bridge, I know that the "proper" Tele bridge is 3-saddle but the modern bridge is much more versatile and accurate for action and intonation.

This reminds me that I have to upgrade my Tele bridge to a 6-saddle

Cool unit. How does it sound?

I know for a while, depending on the Tele, Fender would include both the 3 barrel and six saddle bridge as part of the purchase. My AVRI 52 Tele had one included with all the case candy (I bought it second hand but confirmed on a few sites). They also used to ship with an extra cap if you wanted it to not do the original 3 way wiring, which to be honest was pretty useless. That roll off for a bass sound wasn’t anything useful at all. Whoever had mine had already done that part for me. All I did to mine was add 4 way wiring but I might go back to 3…

I digress. Mort that Tele is sweet. Rock the fuck out of it. Through a Super if you still have one. Or any of your fine builds.

Nice scors, and good to see ya Mort!

broslinger wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:43 am Cool unit. How does it sound?

It has its pros and cons.

The low end tends to distort in a bad way depending on the touch.

But the overall verb effect is nice. It doesn’t get extreme and hollowed out like Fender reverbs but the tail still gets quite long.

Here’s a quick and dirty little recording.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 9:00 pm yes, this look like a 2004 Highway 1 Tele. Why do you think it's just the Hwy1 body and not the whole guitar? The neck also looks correct for a Hwy1 of that era. The only thing that is off is the 6 saddle bridge instead of the 3 saddle, but that was probably replaced when they replaced the pickups. They're great guitars, nonetheless.

Yeah, that's absolutely a stock Highway 1 aside from the bridge and pickups.

They had the US Standard style headstock logo but the Highway 1s from 03-05 had 21 frets vs the 22 fret US Standard fretboard. They also had normal size frets, and low output pickups.

My favorite guitar of all time is my '04 Highway 1 Tele that I've had for over 15 years. These first gen Highway 1s are amazing guitars and MUCH better than the later 06 and later that moved to jumbo frets, the dumb 70s logo headstock, and ridiculously hot pickups that sounded like garbage.

That reverb unit sounds kinda... bad.