| Beck's Articles: '51 No Caster repair. |
I have repaired a lot of broken guitars, but the most challenging and difficult repair was to a 1951 No Caster, or Clip Caster, as they are often called. That's cause the BROADKASTER part of the decal, has actually been trimmed off, leaving just the word FENDER.
Let's back up a minute and explain the situation. A young man came into my shop one day, with an old Fender case. I immediately identified the case as the cheesy style that comes with the very early Esquires and Broadkasters. It's got sort of a light bulb head shape to it. When he opened the case, I was totally unprepared for what I was about to see. It appeared that this guitar was RUN over by a car!!! And wouldn't ya know it?? I said, "Are you trying to sell this guitar???"
The young man scowled back, "Don't you try to get it away from me; it's not for sale, not at any price you wanna pay. I just know it's valuable and want to get it fixed right, and had heard you were good at basket cases."
This guitar most certainly was a basket case.
'51 Fender No Caster (or Clip Caster) - before repair |
He went on to say, "I've brought it in to several shops, and they all tell me what a piece of junk it is and how worthless it is, and I would be lucky to get $100 for it. By the way, they also ask, you wanna sell it?? I kept telling them NO WAY. Now, I'm not sure what its worth, but I'll bet its worth more than $100."
We talked about the types of repairs it needed, and the degree of difficulty required to repair it, and he decided to have the repairs done. After much prodding, he explained, "I was just driving down the street, and I noticed an insurance company was having, like a yard sale, with all sorts of stuff out in front to be seen, in hopes somebody would come by to purchase stuff that they obviously had collected after cashing their customers out. In other words, the clearing out of junk stuff .. Being interested in owning a guitar, I stopped when I saw the case, opened up the case and it was this badly bashed Fender. Couldn't tell what kind, just saw the Fender decal on it. I asked one of the sales people about it. He said that a man coming out of a bar had left it leaning up against the rear bumper of the car and, being half drunk I suspect, ran the guitar over!!!!!!"
'51 Fender No Caster - before repair |
I was right!!!!! It had been run over by a car. An excellent original condition 1951 No Caster was run over by a drunk who was just backing out and forgot that he had left it leaning on the rear end of his car!!!!
"SO with that in mind, I bought it for $25" he said.
I nearly dropped dead right there!!!!!! UNBELIEVEABLY, RIGHT IN PHOENIX, CROSS TOWN, this Broadkaster changed hands for $25.00.
In a famous letter from Gretch Manufacturing Company to Fender, that had already patented that name, it was stated, "Your use of trademark Broadkaster on your electric guitar is an infringement of our trademark BroadKaster, etc." Some unlucky person at Fender had to spend time carefully, with scissors, cutting the name Broadkaster off the Fender Decals, apparently of which there were several hundred made by then!! This is one of the strangest tales I can tell, but see the photos. Check the part of the body, still attached to the neck. Check out the 1 7/8 inch screws holding the parts together!!! Talk about a difficult job.
'51 Fender No Caster - headstock with "clipped" Fender decal |
When I finished I had added new swamp ash, did all the finish work, and matched the paint with the help of a computer matching machine. I was proud to say the repair was near Invisible�. The real kicker is this:
The Customer sold the guitar for $25,000!!!!!!!!!!! Ya never know what you can find if you look hard enough.
'51 Fender No Caster - after repair |
'51 Fender No Caster - after repair |
Regards, Luthier, Repair Expert, Tech, Inventor, Richard Beck.
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