Epic Axes is a musician-driven showroom in Los Angeles. Each guitar is personally selected, inspected, and tested to ensure top performance - only instruments we would play ourselves become part of our collection.

Fender Telecaster TLG-80 "All Black" – Made in Japan (1986–1987)

A seriously cool and increasingly hard-to-find Fender Japan TLG-80 "All Black" from the golden FujiGen era.

This guitar has clearly lived a full musical life and wears its history proudly. Cosmetically, it is what many would call a true road warrior. There are numerous dings, dents, scratches, finish chips, and signs of honest use throughout the instrument. Rather than attempting to document every individual mark, we encourage you to study the photos carefully - they tell the story better than words ever could. The wear is completely natural and authentic, creating the kind of genuine vintage character that simply cannot be replicated.

Under the hood, the guitar remains remarkably original. The pickups and electronics are original to the instrument, with the only known change being a replaced output jack.

Internal markings show a TLG-80-55 neck stamp and a CTL-50M body stamp. The CTL-50M designation is known to appear on a variety of Fender Japan Telecaster models from this period and is generally understood to represent a common production platform used across multiple model variations. The neck and body share matching finish characteristics, matching production-era inspection markings, and consistent stamp styles, all of which strongly suggest a period-correct FujiGen assembly. As with many vintage Japanese Fender instruments, exact factory documentation is unavailable, so we prefer to present these details transparently and allow collectors to draw their own conclusions.

Most importantly, this Telecaster delivers exactly what you would hope for from a great vintage Japanese Fender. It has that unmistakable Tele twang, excellent note separation, lively attack, and a wonderfully balanced response across all pickup positions. Whether played clean or driven, it sounds every bit like a proper vintage Telecaster should.

The original vintage-style frets remain in good shape, showing even wear throughout with no significant divots or dead spots. There is still plenty of life left in them and the guitar plays comfortably up and down the neck.

A wonderfully broken-in, honest vintage Telecaster with decades of character, killer tone, and all the mojo that only time can create.

No case included.

The following work has been done: full fretboard conditioning with lemon oil, fret polish, pickup height adjustment for balance and clarity, and a fresh set of D’Addario 10-46s installed. String height at the 12th fret on the low E is right at 2.2 mm - set for comfortable playability. 

Body

• Construction: Solid body, bolt-on
• Wood: Basswood
• Finish: Black, gloss polyester
• Pickguard: Black single-ply Telecaster pickguard
• Weight: approx. 3.4–3.8 kg / 7.5–8.4 lbs
• Contours: Classic Telecaster single cutaway slab body

Neck

• Material: Maple
• Joint: Bolt-on
• Profile: Vintage-style Telecaster C profile
• Fingerboard: Rosewood
• Radius: approx. 7.25" (184 mm)
• Frets: 21 vintage-style frets
• Fret Condition: Good, light wear with plenty of life remaining
• Scale Length: 25.5" (648 mm)
• Nut: Synthetic bone
• Nut Width: approx. 42 mm / 1.65"
• Neck Finish: Gloss polyester

Hardware

• Bridge: Vintage Telecaster ashtray-style bridge with 3 brass saddles
• Tuners: Fender vintage-style sealed tuners
• Strap Buttons: Standard
• Hardware Finish: Gold

Electronics

• Pickups:  Original Japanese Pickups
• Configuration: SS
• Controls:
  • Master Volume
  • Master Tone
• Switching: 3-way blade switch
• Output Jack: 1/4" mono

Other

• Model: TLG80-55 (Telecaster ’60s style)
• Year: circa 1986–1987
• Made in: Japan (MIJ)
• Case: Not included