Ok... as you can see I like Telecaster style guitars from the real deal Fenders to  the good value Michael Kelly's. The original twang of the old time Tele is what drew me to this type of guitar. I like the way they looked and the low maintenance. In particular I like the way they feel. To me they are very comfortable guitars to sit or stand with. Easy to play on the knee without a strap and very simple controls. Plus you can customize them easily by replacing the pick guard but I've yet to do that to any of mine. 

Like other guitars different pickups in varying configurations make for different sounding Teles but they all feel pretty close to the same. If a Tele nose dives on you then you got some poor engineering somewhere.  I've never run into a badly balanced Tele body so far.

There are two Fenders (the blonde on the left and the three tone sunburst in front) in the Teles shown here. The blonde 60's model repop with the ashtray cover is one of my favorite guitars. I don't like the original three saddle setup but this one is intonated to my liking. 

Next up are two G&Ls (green and white with redwood fret board and the natural with the maple fretboard)with the L being Leo Fender. The G&L Tele is his vision of a more modern instrument and a helluva one at that. The green and white is an ASAT with MFD pickups and its another of my favorites. The natural is a more classic style Tele and I picked it up on Stupid Deal of the Day at Musician's Friend for a quarter of the cost of the ASAT. While it won't match up to the green one it holds it own in that price range. It hardly sees any playing time but I enjoy when I do pick it up.

The pecan colored flame top is the Michael Kelly. One of my first decent Teles. It might not be a performer but it is certainly worth the price. Good feeling and good looking with coil taps.

In the very back you will see a funky shaped, lemon colored Tele. This is a Dream Studios Twang. A higher end boutique guitar that was so poorly intonated I had to replace the original saddles with slanted saddles. I got the thing for next to nothing... because no one could intonate it. Less than $50 later and a little bit of time the intonation problem was solved and I have another great guitar for a fraction of the cost new. The guitar even came in the original box even though it had been opened to be displayed when they realized it wouldn't intonate so back in the box it went and a year of so later I got it on the cheap and set it up properly.  

You will notice that I skipped the Blue Tele on the right side and there is a reason for that. That was my first Tele and one of the first electric guitars I bought when I decided I was going to learn to play. It's a big name one too... brace yourself... wait for it... it a "Monoprice".  That's right... the cheap electronics importer know for cables as much as anything. It cost a whopping 80 bucks. That $80.00. I didn't know shit about a guitar back then... as you can tell. 

Anyway... I've kept that little beast because it was the first guitar I ever jammed to when I finally started to grasp the pentatonic scale and playing in scale in general. This was the baby that I first played up and down the neck to a backing track. When it was over I thought  I was God. Or at least Gawd. This blue baby put me firmly on my journey as a player and I it will always be valuable to me as a wall hanger like an old family photograph. 

Never mind the cigar box, film box guitars or the ESP. They just needed a place to hangout as space was getting tight on the other end of the studio.

The Teles are one of life's great little pleasures for me and I will continue to collect them as long as I can. The only thing keeping me from being a hoarder is a lack of substantial cash to make the purchases. 

Tele's rule!!!