1953 Fender Esquire

1953 Fender Esquire in stock condition with "8/13/53 Gloria" tape, a 7-13-53 Tadeo Gomez body date, and a 7-27-53 Neck date. A true joy to play with an intuitive "V" neck contour that fills the hand without being too obtrusive; a testament to the thought and care that went into these early contoured necks.  The bridge pickup sounds absolutely amazing with a subtle, soft vintage clarity that rolls off the high-end in all the right places for a beautiful high-end note blossom that'll keep you playing. This a loved and played instrument but is still in excellent cosmetic shape with wear in the expected places with a decent amount of life left in the original frets. An incredible collectors-grade Esquire! Includes original hardshell case.

Check out the feature from our luthier Tyler in the ECG Newsletter:

"A great deal of justified fuss is made about blackguard Telecasters. Truth be told, I am personally responsible for stirring up more than my fair share. Though as much gravitas as the Tele carries, its much rarer and slightly abridged stablemate often proves even more capable.

Much has been said regarding the virtues of ultra-light ash bodies joined with chunky maple necks. Danny Gatton would have told you. So would Roy Buchanan. Nacho Banos wrote a book about it. But understanding the Esquire requires an uncomfortable reckoning for us vintage enthusiasts. The Tele is a design perfected, but how necessary is the neck pickup really? Strats and Les Pauls are a different story. The jarring truth is that Fender's golden child is functionally a single-pickup guitar. So why add a neck pickup? Realistically, to make the guitar easier to market and to justify a $10 upcharge.

Any practical advantage the Esquire has over the Telecaster is minimal, of course. But the difference between great guitars and exceptional guitars is often a game of splitting microns. The conventional argument is that the neck pickup's magnets passively exert a slight pull on the strings, muffling sustain and response. This theory is generally either written off as nonsense or taken as holy scripture. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. It may be a matter of fractions of a percent, but the fractions do add up. This 1953 example has miraculously remained 100% original and in near-mint condition. Complete with its original hardshell case, calling this Esquire "collector grade" would be an understatement."