Fender Telecaster Thinline

About the Fender Telecaster Thinline

Most vintage guitars under this name are US Thinlines built in Fullerton, California, in two versions. Fender introduced the Thinline in 1968 to make a lighter guitar from heavy ash: the body is chambered, with one f-hole and a reshaped pickguard. The first version, made from late 1968 to 1971, keeps the standard Telecaster setup: two single coils, one volume, one tone and a three-way switch. From late 1971, with 1972 its first full year, the second version carries two Wide Range humbuckers, a bullet truss rod nut, a three-bolt neck with Micro-Tilt and a six-saddle hardtail bridge. Bodies are ash, mostly natural; sunburst and other colors turn up less often.

The neck heel carries a dated ink stamp such as 3 MAY 69 B, often faint. Serial, neck stamp and pot codes can be a year or more apart (1966 pots on a 1971 guitar), so read them together. Nitro lacquer and poly were used side by side, with nitro on the headstock face. Weighed first-version guitars come in at about 6 to 6.6 lb (2.7 to 3.0 kg), second-version ones at 6.6 to 8.4 lb (3.0 to 3.8 kg). Measured nuts are about 1 5/8 inch (41 mm); 1972 to 1975 necks run 0.82 to 0.86 inch deep at the first fret and 0.89 to 0.92 inch at the 12th. The pickguard is often cracked, shrunk or replaced. Expect refrets, new tuners, changed pickups and wiring, and filled holes or extra routing from past mods.

Later US and Japanese models and Custom Shop builds also carry this name.

In one paragraph

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Listings of the Fender Telecaster Thinline we watched from listing to sale typically went in 56 days (9 watched), a slow; it sells for a median of €1,350 over the last 90 days across 11 recorded sales, with most examples landing between €730 and €2,500. The sale median is down 22% on the €1,724 of the 90 days before. There are 245 listings live right now across eBay Germany, eBay United States, Reverb, from €490 asking, a median ask 49% over the sale median. Figures computed 18 October 2026 by Doirado from cross-platform listing data.