31. Wesley Tele with P90s
I TOOK a lot of stick over this guitar…a LOT of stick! It cost me £46 brand new (including shipping) from a dealer on eBay who was marketing a whole range of Far Eastern Wesley-brand instruments with idiotically low starting prices on the auctions.
Since then, the likes of Tank and my good friend Joel have never, ever let me forget that I once sang the praises of such a cheap and cheerful guitar. I still maintain, though, it was worth every penny – maybe not all that much more, though.
Photogenic it certainly was – and very reminiscent of some of the reinventions of the Telecaster Fender itself was beginning to bring out at the time, a kind of cross between a Thinline Tele and a Les Paul Special.
Set neck, edge binding, no pickguard. Gibson-style bridge/tailpiece and a pair of soapbars – visually it sort of gelled. £46 was the auction’s starting price, but also the way the auction ended – I was the only bidder.
When it arrived, I was reasonably impressed with it, too. The neck was bigger and chunkier than I was used to, the pickups and the electronics were nothing to write home about, but the guitar was perfectly useable, and after all, it had set me back just forty-six quid. Delivered!
It arrived in 2007, while I was convalescing at home after my heart attack, and was the first guitar I’d bought since coming out of hospital, so it would bound to have a bit of a special place in my heart. I couldn’t wait to be allowed to drive again, so I could take it out to a few jams and play it in anger and also gig it with the Armadillos.
I actually gigged that guitar a fair amount for a couple of years on and off, so it couldn’t have been that bad. I upgraded the pickups with something slightly better from the GFS website at one stage, but in the end, despite its sentimental value, it had to go.
Back on eBay it went – can’t remember how much I got for it, but I’m pretty sure it was more than £46, so the joke’s on you, guys!
43 Guitars…and Counting! 