A rare 1967 Fender original 'smugglers' Telecaster at a pretty decent price - read on:

I am sure you may know the story but in case you've not heard, folklore has it sometime in 1967 Fender had a particularly hefty batch of ash they needed to use on some of their Telecaster bodies. Not wanting to be wasteful, they decided to channel out these bodies with three routes under the pickguard to help relieve the weight and these, relatively few Telecasters, became infamously known as the smugglers Tele.

Why smugglers? Well as you can clearly see with the pickguard back on, these cavities could be utilised for slightly nefarious purposes. It does however remains doubtful it would pass un-noticed through airport x-ray machines of today, so my very strong recommendation is - do not try it :-)

This particular example has had a body only refinish and expert relic by Clive Brown no less. He also aged the pickguard to match the wear on the top of the body and overall, the whole package just looks awesome...

Electics are all period correct with a grey bottom pickup pencil dated January 1968 and 2 x pots dated 23rd week of 1966. Neck date is Sept 1967 and serial number is late 1967. Weight is 3.5Kg

The case included is an original Canadian export case from the mid - late 60's. If you bought  Fender Strat or Tele via the Canadian Fender distributor in the 60's, this is what you would have received.

There is one extra string tree added, apart from that, all other hardware is correct and this vintage Tele has a very cool, played in vibe about it. Apparently it has had a refret but this is so good and perfect you would struggle to tell unless I told you... which I just have. Both pickups are nice, meaty, twangy and strong.

RARE to see these original guitars, in fact this is only the second original 1967 smugglers Tele I have come across in 20 years. Plenty of the re-issues out there, but original ones are hard to come by.

​As always plenty of internal pics are available to anyone seriously interested.

As a footnote, the person I bought it from told me he bought it on eBay UK a very long time ago. The seller had it priced real cheap because he assumed that 'some crazed idiot had taken a router to it a long time ago'. This maybe so, but the 'crazed idiot' he was unknowingly referring to was indeed Fender themselves, at the Fullerton plant, in late '67.