This one-of f Tele features or nate body laminations and a fretted rosewood neck
“ This guitar probably left the factory around 1975, but it was put together earlier on by Philip Kubicki in Fender’s R&D department. It was likely made around 1971, and finally completed around ’75 as the original pots date to then. Philip Kubicki was an apprentice to renowned guitar-builder Roger Rossmeisl, and they both worked on the George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster [made in 1968] and the Hendrix Rosewood Stratocaster prototypes. Kubicki also worked on the Thinline Telecaster, LTD and Montego projects. He ended up becoming a production manager at Fender and was ‘the guy’ when Rossmeisl left [in the early 70s]. There are some very experimental guitars that Kubicki made, and this is one of them. When I met him in the 80s, he was already out of Fender and was busy building his [Factor] Basses. The store I was with was a dealer for them. He was a very smart guy and had a lot of interesting CBS-era Fender stories.
“This guitar features a solid rosewood neck with a maple skunk stripe and headstock plug, like a regular production Rosewood Tele – not a rosewood cap, like Harrison’s prototype Rosewood Tele. It must have been a leftover Rosewood Telecaster neck that he used [Rosewood Telecasters were manufactured sporadically between 1968 and 1972]. There is no serial number on the neckplate, just the ‘F’ Fender logo, which makes sense as it’s a prototype guitar. It sounds very much like a Rosewood Telecaster. We were trying to match the guitar’s sound with other Teles we have here so that we could write a description for the website. But it didn’t sound like an ash-body Tele. And it didn’t sound like an alder-body Tele. We just kept going through guitars and the closest thing we could find to it was a 1970 Rosewood Telecaster that we have here.
“The body is crazy. Evidently, a lot of work went into this electric guitar. I imagine every type of wood Kubicki had on his bench went into it. It’s made from pieces of alder, ash, ebony, mahogany, padauk, purpleheart and spruce. And there are a couple of woods that I can’t identify. There are about 35 different pieces of wood that make up the body. They call this guitar the Stringer because it looks like there are strings running through it – tiny little veneers that just separate the different woods. It’s got these black strings running through that are made of ebony to contrast with the light woods. And to contrast with the darker pieces, Kubicki used thin strips of white wood. It really is something else.
