Squier Classic Vibe 50s Telecaster Electric Guitar, Butterscotch Blonde, Maple Fingerboard

There are numerous sellers of this item on Amazon. I selected "Sold and Shipped by Amazon" as the seller. The box arrived intact and I was happy to see the box had a previous freight shipping label from Fender's San Bernadino factory to Amazon's Channahon warehouse.1. OVERALL: This guitar arrived well packed and blemish free. This is a beautifully built and finished guitar. The sunburst and double binding is a great look. The knobs/pots felt fine, and the tuners, bridge and nut were ok as well. A bit of string stretching and string lube and this guitar holds tune pretty well. The guitar comes with very light strings, feels like 9s. Easy to play, however I have a heavy touch and could hear the tuning issues. Swapped to 10s and all good.2. FRETS: The first thing I checked for was high frets with a fret rocker. Happy to find there were none.3. SETUP: Out of the box, the relief and action were out of spec but playable. The out of the box set up along with Fender's specifications are shown below.Relief at 8th fret, capo on 1st fret: 0.30 mm New vs 0.203 mm Spec.Action at 12th: 2.25mm New vs 1.6mm Spec.A quick truss rod and bridge adjustment produced the factory spec, that I was happy with, buzz free and no dead frets.It's worth noting that there were no sharp frets out of the box. It's winter and the humidity in my house is very low, in the teens. Within a week, I did feel sharp fret ends. Short term, I plan to keep this in a case with a Boveda humidity pack. I'll likely need to eventually dress the fret ends because I prefer to leave my guitars in stands, out of the case.4. Finally, the part that is subjective: I love the way this guitar plays and sounds. The neck profile is a bit thinner than I prefer but workable. The sound is classic telecaster.Overall, this is a well built guitar that will need a good setup out of the box. The one thing I didn't like was the shallow input jack. When using a right angle cord, the plug doesn't seat fully. Also a know issue with the constantly loose jack on this style Telecaster jack. The solution is to replace with an Electrosocket jack cup. There are several brands sold, I installed the one from KAISH and am very happy with it.March 31 2025 update: I did end up buying a Stew Mac end file and spent a quick 1/2 hour dressing the fret ends. Nice and smooth now. This guitar does seem to be more susceptible to humidity than my other guitars. Went away for a week traveling, came back to dead frets in the 5th fret area. A quick 1/2 turn to the truss rod to add relief and the issue was resolved. Also snugged up the four neck bolts. Had no similar issues with my other two guitars in the same room.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's. When I first started playing squier was a decent 1st guitar but nothing that a gigging musician would ever play on stage. In my music circle of friends in high school squier was a brand we kind of made fun of. If you still were playing on your $100 squier you weren't serious about music or good enough to play in a band setting. While this way of thinking is admittedly wrong, arrogant and ridiculous it was our way of thinking about this brand back then. Now in 2021 Squier has completely changed my attitude and feelings towards their guitars and particularly their Classiv Vibe line. I have the 50's butterscotch Tele, the red 50's strat, the red 60's strat and the white 70s strat. I've been wanting this 60s telecaster for some time now. Recently I saw this one sold on Amazon as a used guitar at a discounted price. First off let me say I'll eat my left shoe if this guitar wasn't brand new. I could find zero flaws, scratches, dents, marks of any sort. Still had plastic on pick guard and neck pickup. It's an absolutely beautiful guitar. Excellent neck. Seems to be the same neck profile as the 50s Tele but with a rosewood board. Binding on the body looks great. And i gotta say the pickups actually sound good. I'll still probably replace them with my own (I wind my own Tele pickups) but there's no need to replace them they sound decent. The neck pickup is a bit dark for my tastes and seems to have a bit less overall output than the neck but thats pretty normal. I replaced the nut, installed compensated brass saddles and a roller string tree. The neck needed a bit of relief but a small truss rod adjustment took care of that no problem. No sharp fret edges. Frets look to be finished properly. Could maybe use a polish but completely playable right put of the box. My only real complaint is (this applies to all the classic Vibe guitars I have) it is a very heavy guitar. Other than that I have no real complaints. For maybe $100 more dollars in upgraded parts this thing plays like a dream. I love it! I am totally a squier fan boy now. I would play this guitar on any stage with pride. I know some people will try to sand off the squier headstock logo but not me. Not only is that a fairly difficult job to actually get the logo off it ruins the look and finish of the headstock. I don't get hung up on brands anymore. Plug that baby in and play it like you own it! I can't recommend this instrument enough. If you're on the fence take the leap and buy this killer Tele, you won't regret it!

I already owned other Squier Classic Vibe models and they're all great guitars for the money so I figured the same for this one, and it is. Fit and finish is excellent, setup was almost perfect (just lowered the action a bit), fretwork is fine, no sharp or uneven frets, nicely polished. The pickups sound like a Tele should, you could upgrade them to Texas specials or whatever, the guitar is worthy of it, but they sound fine as is. Be sure to put new strings on it, I do that with every new guitar. Old cheap import strings can cause problems and limit the tonal quality.I did put on brass compensated bridge saddles because 1. they intonate better, and 2. they look and sound good. But it was fine before I did. The one piece maple neck feels great, it's glossy with a nice vintage amber color but it doesn't feel sticky. If that bothers you it's easy enough to use some steel wool to take it to satin level. Highly recommend this guitar, whether you're a beginner or just adding to your collection without breaking the bank.