Fender Custom Shop and Seymour Duncan have collaborated on a strictly limited recreation of Seymour's personal "Tele-Gib" – the modified 1950s Telecaster he built for himself after creating the original for Jeff Beck.
Seymour Duncan’s personal “Tele-Gib” is one of those guitars with an interesting backstory, and now it’s getting the Custom Shop treatment. Fender and Seymour Duncan have announced the Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster, a faithful recreation of the instrument Seymour built and played for decades.
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The story starts in the early 1970s. Seymour, who worked in London at the time, created the first Tele-Gib for Jeff Beck, combining a Telecaster body with humbucker power. He then built his own version shortly after, starting with a 1950s Fender body and neck and modifying it to suit his preferences: adjusting intonation, string spacing, ergonomics and adding a Gibson Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar tailpiece. That guitar became his lifelong workhorse, and this limited run recreates it in precise detail.
The Fender Custom Shop has replicated the one-piece select ash body with Seymour’s custom arm and belly contours, finished in aged nitrocellulose lacquer. The neck is a C shape matched to the original’s taper and feel, and the aged gold Tune-o-matic bridge and stopbar are present and accounted for.
Maricela “MJ” Juarez of the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop wound the replicas by hand – a pre-production variation of the JB/Jazz set that Seymour originally built for his own guitar. The bridge coil uses a slightly different wire than a standard production JB, and the magnets have been carefully de-gaussed to Seymour’s personal preference. A 500k Bourns volume pot and 250k CTS tone pot round out the electronics, matching the exact setup in the original.
Each guitar ships with a certificate of authenticity signed by Seymour W. Duncan and the Fender Custom Shop. Numbers are strictly limited, so this is very much a case of move fast or miss out.
For more information, visit seymourducan.com and fender.com.
