The best / rarest / longest searched for guitar for You ?
That would have to be the Baja Tele I bought in September. They stopped making them in 2018. It's rare to see one listed for under $1000 and even more rare to see one listed locally. The seller had it listed for $850 initially which given it's condition was a decent price especially if I paid that for one sold on Reverb I'd at least have another $70 in sales tax and probably that much more in shipping added to it. I was giving it some thought when all of a sudden it showed sold.....ah hell. Ya' snooze ya' lose right?
Then a week or so later it's listed again but for $750 and it didn't waste any more time thinking about it. I touched base with the seller and he was only 10-15 minutes from me. Half and hour later I'm there with cash in hand. At that price I couldn't hesitate because if I even have to sell it some day I won't lose a nickel on it. The Baja model was a Custom Shop creation Fender had built in Ensenada, Mexico to their own specs which included a soft "V" neck profile, early 50s Broadcaster pickups, and custom wiring/electronics.
I used to own a Custom Shop '51 Nocaster which I sold some years ago when I began to expand my gear herd. Given how little I paid for it having gotten it from our guitarist at the time who was the Fender Rep here in Colorado I kinda regretted selling it. But I had another Tele like it and what I sold the Nocaster for helped pay for a quite a bit of the other gear I was buying. The Baja is so very close to that Nocaster in feel and quality but for 25% of the price of a used '51 Nocaster it'll easily take it's place in my hands and heart.
I did a tone cap swap from an .047 to an .015 this past weeked to reduce some of the drop off in the highs as I roll back on the tone pot. I prefer a more subtle roll off than a .047 gives me. Then I can skip the treble bleed mod entirely. The only other mod I'm thinking of making is swapping the neck pickup out for one that's RW/RP to the bridge pickup to eliminate the hum in the both pickups in parallel setting. Either a Fender Nocaster or a DiMarzio Twang King neck pickup should do the trick.
Gotta feeling I'll own this one for a very long time. It and my PBass will likely go to my grave with me. Gotta have that "old school" gear.
She's not as pretty as yours Peter but then a Tele was never meant to be all that pretty anyway. It's always been an "Ugly Betty" in the Fender line up but then that a huge part of it's charm just like my TV Yellow LP Special. That was the other choice for my guitar of the year but the Baja nosed it out by just a hair. It's probably the third one that I'll keep forever. So I'll include it as the runner up.
