Hey Gang!

When Brad posted last week about the new AV Telecasters, I immediately got on the phone to my Sweetwater sales guy. He told me they were on the way, so I got my name on the 1st black '72 Custom they got in stock. He called me Tuesday morning that it had shipped, and when I got home from work this afternoon I had a big box waiting!

1st - no pictures yet - I'll get some up over the weekend. I know the rules.

2nd - I'll give you my opinion as I see it - this is just my opinion - like Martian says - YMMV.

Anyway - on to the '72 Custom...

$1499.99 shipped to my front door.

The case is a nice G&G black Tolex hardcase very similar to the Fender cases of the '70's. It's typical G&G quality - absolutely no complaints. It has the black "velvet" lining and the storage box. Inside the storage box was the case candy - 6 saddle bridge, ashtray cover, cord, polishing cloth and strap. Also all the hang tags. Everything like it should be.

The weight of the guitar is what I'd consider "average" for the Tele's in my herd. The 2 heaviest Tele's I have are a '97 MIM standard and my B-Bender. The AV '72 Custom is nowhere near what these guitars weigh, so it doesn't have the "boat anchor" weight of the original '70's Teles.

Fit and finish - flawless. Again - much better than the original '70's Teles. Ash body, black gloss laquer finish. Perfect. 3 ply B/W/B pick guard. The volume and tone switches are smooth turning and bring volume and tone in and out gradually when turned - there's no "jumping" or flat spots. The 3-way switch switches smoothly. It does feel a little sloppy in the middle position, but my '72 MIM Deluxe feels the same way. I'm guessing it's the same switch, MIM or MIA.

As installed is the 3-saddle bridge with steel saddles. The bridge sits flat and has no rough edges around the lip. No complaints on the bridge and saddles. I like the looks of the vintage 3-saddle bridge over the 6-saddle bridge, so even though it shipped w/ a 6-saddle bridge, I doubt I'll ever swap them out.

Bridge and neck pickups - The bridge seems to be a pretty standard Tele bridge pickup. The best way to describe it - it sounds like a Tele. Plain and simple. The neck pickup is the "Wide Range" Humbucker. In the advertizing I've seen so far, Fender claims they've "tweeked" this humbucker to sound more like the originals of the '70's Teles. I guess I'll take their word on this one. I pulled out my MIM '72 Thinline and my MIM '72 Deluxe and A/B/C'd all 3 guitars in the neck humbucker position through my little Champ 600 and I honestly couldn't hear a difference. I'll run them through the '65 Princeton Reverb RI tomorrow and see what I hear. Anyway - no complaints. Not everybody likes a Tele w/ a humbucker, but I really like what I get out of my Deluxe and Thinline.

On to the neck...

1st -it was set up nice out of the box. I know Sweetwater gives everything a quick going over before they ship something, so if there were issues from the factory, I don't know of them.

7.25 vintage radius w/ a C profile. Maple. 21 vintage frets. Gloss laquer. "F" tuners. 3 bolt w/ the bullet trussrod. Don't worry about the 3 bolt. This neck is solidly attached. F tuners are smooth with no slop. (Ask me again in a year or so.) The neck feels good and the frets were cleaned up nice. No complaints.

I only have one complaint about the guitar... the neck is tinted to appear aged, and "they" went way overboard on the tint. I put it next to my Butterscotch '52, and the '72 neck is darker than the '52 Butterscotch body! Way too much tint! In the promo pictures the neck appears to show just a little color. Nope. This thing is tinted like the neck on my Classic Series '50's Strat. It's almost orange.

Minus 1 big point for tinting the neck so dark!

But. Overall... do I like this guitar? Yup - I love it! Other than the too dark neck tint, I honestly can't find a single flaw. It's not 100% period correct, but for the most part, that's a good thing - it's much better quality. It is very worthy of carrying the AV label.

I give Fender 2 big thumbs-up for bringing out these new Telecasters. I know the '70's era Telecasters aren't everyones favorite, but if you are even remotely interested, you need to check one out!

Next up will be the AV '69 Thinline in white. I can't wait!

Sorry for such a long post, but I want you all to know what a great guitar Fender has put together. This is a nice Tele!

RickyD

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Old age and treachery will win every time over youth and enthusiasm.

"You can never have too many Tele's." A quote from my Sweetwater Sales Engineer

excellent review, congrats, patiently waiting for pics.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Now that is how a review is done!! Great job. Enjoy the guitar and can't wait to see your pics.

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

Great review on a great guitar-Enjoy!!!They'll probably sell a few more because of that review.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Cant wait to see this one (congrats)
----Danny,

How are you liking it now that you have owned it a while? Can you post some pictures?

conrats and enjoy...look forward to the update after you consumate the relationship

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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancin'