SOLD! - 1969 Fender Custom Maverick Sunburst
This very rare and early Fender Custom (later called Maverick) is a true piece of fender history, a vintage collector's item, and a cool guitar to play!
The Custom/Maverick is THE guitar to play Spaghetti Western movie themes and it has become a real cult classic. Only about 600-800 were ever made in total and only a handful of the early ones are called Custom's. This piece of art is all original except for a replaced volume pot and comes with a non original 60's matching case.
The post-CBS buyout Fender Musical Instrument Company was presented with a problem unfamiliar to it in prior years: leftover stock and parts from a model that was a commercial failure. Fender's Electric XII model failed to sell as many pieces as anticipated and the leftover unfinished bodies and necks were piling up at the factory. In 1969, Fender's production manager was tasked with repurposing the stock into something they could sell. Thus, the Fender Custom was born.
Long time Fender employee "Babe" Simoni skirted the R&D department and set out to solve the problem. He took the XII bodies to the band saw and made a few adjustments to the body shape. The new shape had a slightly more aggressive look but still had a route in the back of the body for the 12 string through-body tailpiece design. The unnecessary route was plugged and the body was finished sunburst on the front and black on the back. The neck was left largely unchanged except that the earliest versions were already drilled for 12 tuners instead of 6. These guitars had a laminate Maple veneer glued over the top and back of the headstock and were redrilled for three tuners per side. It was finished out with two split coil pickups from the XII, the 4 position rotary switch from the XII, and a Mustang tremolo tail piece. The resulting guitar was initially deemed the Fender Custom but was soon switched to Fender Maverick. Sales were rather slow for the Custom/Maverick so it was dropped from Fender's price list after only one year in 1970.