Every guitarist has a mental image of "that" Telecaster; the one with a Bigsby perched on top, oozing cool the second it comes out of the case. And every guitarist who has considered buying one has also had the same little voice in the back of their head: won't the tone go soft? Won't it lose sustain? Isn't a Bigsby just a good-looking compromise?

This guitar is Fender's answer to exactly that worry, and it's a genuinely rare find in Europe. It's a Japan-built, limited-edition Traditional II '60s Telecaster that keeps every bit of that swagger while being built, spec by spec, to play like a proper working guitar rather than just a showpiece.

It starts with the body: a solid, satisfyingly weighty piece of basswood. That extra mass is doing real work here, tightening up the low end and keeping the Bigsby's natural looseness in check, so notes stay focused and defined instead of turning to mush. Underneath that sits a slab-jointed rosewood fingerboard, the flat-glued construction Fender used back in the early '60s, which brings a warmth and fullness to the low-mids that pairs beautifully with a Telecaster's natural bite.

The pickups are vintage-style single-coils, chosen for how directly they respond to your touch; dig in and they push back, back off and they clean right up, so your dynamics do the talking. And even though the fretwork keeps that vintage low profile look, the frets themselves are narrow-tall, which means less pressure needed to fret cleanly and effortless bends and vibrato, a nice bit of modern playability hiding under a classic silhouette.

Put it all together and you get everything people love about a Bigsby-equipped Tele: that shimmering, slightly wild top-end when you lean on the arm, that unmistakable stage presence, without the tradeoffs guitarists usually brace themselves for. It's a guitar built for the player who wants to look like the coolest person in the room and still nail the tone when it counts.

This particular example is used and in very good condition, with only very light signs of use, genuinely hard to spot unless you're looking closely. Given how limited this run was to begin with, finding one in this condition on this side of the Atlantic is a rare stroke of luck. Come play it for yourself at Sun-Sounds, Sliema.

SPECS:

- Year of manufacture: 2022

- Finish: Vintage-White

- Body: Basswood

- Neck: Maple

- Fingerboard: Rosewood (slab-joint construction)

- Pickups: Fender Vintage-Style Single-Coil Tele

- Weight: 3.89 kg

- Nut width: 41.4 mm

- Neck scale: Long scale neck

- Includes: Soft case