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1950 Fender Broadcaster

Fender

This guitar is in our Hall of Fame Collection and is no longer available for purchase.

For your consideration, Garrett Park Guitars presents this 1950 Broadcaster.

We recently bought this guitar from a collection and it is amazing!

Leo Fender worked tirelessly to create a working man's solid-body Spanish guitar that would be simple, easy to manufacture, and easy to repair. The result was the Broadcaster & in late 1950 Fender began to sell these to the general public. The world took notice as loud volumes were now made possible with no resulting unwanted feedback. Indeed a new genre of music was made possible by Leos invention. The Gretsch company also took notice also and asked Fender to drop the use of the name Broadcaster as it was already being used on a drum kit that Gretsch sold.

Very few Broadcasters were ever made & in fact, Nacho Banos in his book The Blackguard estimates that less than 250 Broadcasters were made.  

This guitar bearing serial 0109 has a November 1950 body & neck date and the Stackpole pots (304021) are dated the 21st week of 1950. When we purchased this guitar the wiring had been altered and the CRL 1452 was newer. We were able to source a correct phenolic center switch with the correct 2 patent numbers and had Master Luthier Joel Wilkins from JW Restoration rewire the pots and pickup selector to stock using a Luxe-Radio kit. Joel had some original caps and his restoration is spot on.  At one time this guitar had a newer set of tuners on it and was previously restored with a newer set of single-line Klusons. The pickguard was also smoothed on the edges by some previous owner though this is not easily recognizable nor is it unattractive. 
(Not many original Broadcasters remain and of those that do, most have had some alteration.)

This historic guitar is also an amazing musical instrument. It is lightweight and a joy to play. The original wiring allows for blending of the pickups and its tones are the stuff of legend. Comes with its original case that bears the dealer's badge. We are setting the price at $75,000 but are open to offers and some trades. Thanks for looking!

Weight: 6lbs, 14.0oz

Serial Number: 0109

Condition: Very Good + (some restoration)

Photos of the actual guitar, not stock pictures. We include photos of all the dates including pot dates prior to wiring restoration.

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