The Fender Stealth Esquire Custom 50 Relic built by John English. If a person combined the best features of a ‘50s Fender Esquire, some cool features from the rare Tavares Model 1967 Maurader/Swinger, and also add the craftsmanship of world renowned luthier John English, what you’d get would be an amazingly novel guitar, both fun to play and performance oriented. The coolest deception: “Only your guitar dealer has to know” (I think that was actually the slogan of an advertisement in the ‘60s). It’s like you (and only you) know the secret and therefore, the edge, making the Fender Stealth Esquire a very cool new secret weapon.

From its outward appearance the Fender Stealth Esquire built by John English looks like an Esquire. However, borrowing a trick from the famous Fender Tavares Model 1967 Maurader/Swinger (see the book by Norm Harris with David Swartz “Norman’s Rare Guitars”), there are two additional special pickups under the pickguard (hence the name “Stealth”). The Fender Stealth Esquire features a 5 way switch that allows the player to switch between the three individual pick ups, and two combination pick-up settings, just like on most Fender Stratocasters today. With this five position switch, a guitarist sitting in the crowd watching and listening to you will be amazed at the variety of tones coming from what appears to be a single pick up Fender Esquire.This guitar feels and looks great! The attention to detail on this Fender Stealth Esquire is so cool. The back of the neck is worn in perfectly and therefore plays so smooth and fast. The Relic process is totally believeable. Under the black pickguard is the paint can ring/circle just like on most of the original Fender Black Guard Telecasters and Esquires. Look at the photo… this is great to see. The top has the four nail holes (two under the pickguard, one next to the screw hole under the electronics control plate and one under the bridge) like a ’50s Fender Esquires, Nocasters, Broadcaster and/or Tele. And the two tooling holes are on the back of this Esquire! The lacquer blonde finish on the Esquire shows the “halo” effect like many of the ’50s Fender Esquire and Telecasters. The serial number is on the bridge plate like a mid ’50s and prior Tele and Esquire instead of on the neck plate as on later Fender tels and Esquires. This halo effect was not so noticeable when the guitar was new in say 1953 but with a little age the halo shows itself. The halo effect is said to have been cause by the way Fender painted the guitar bodies. Fender used a lazy susan and laid the guitar on its back, put four small nails in the top of the guitar body and then painted the top and sides while slowly turning the lazy susan. Next fender would turn the guitar body over and paint the back and the sides would be painted again as the end grains of the sides needed additional paint. When painting the sides of the body some additional paint would always end up on the top and back right around the edges and this created the halo effect old vintage Fender Esquires and Telecasters are so known for. The neck

plate has a English signature for the builder.
All of these small details add up and show the incredibly fine craftsmanship of the late John English! I list even more features below. Though this features list looks similar to what is on other web sites sush as the Fender web site, there is more detail below than anywhere else. I give you neck depth, pickup DC resistance and other information that may be useful. It is interesting to me anyway.