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Leo Fender and “Doc” Kauffman are credited for the creation of the first, highly successful electronic musical instruments and could be said to have been the leaders of a musical revolution. Prior to their work with solid-body electric guitars, electronic pick-ups were placed on Spanish guitars which had hollow bodies and a sound box designed to amplify the vibrations of the strings without electrical amplification. A problem arose with that design in that the pick-ups gathered not only the strings vibrations to amplify electronically, but also the out-of-phase vibrations from the hollow-body’s sound box. What resulted was unwanted feedback that totally distorted the sound the musician wanted. Fender’s solid body guitars were able to pick up the sounds from the strings making amplified signals pure and clean, even at high volume.

K & F Manufacturing Corporation was founded in the early 1940’s to design, manufacture and sell electric instruments and amplifiers, specifically, Hawaiian lap steel guitars. In 1945 Kauffman and Fender began production using their patented electronic pick-ups on the guitars and sold the whole set, guitar and amplifier, as a set. Doc Kauffman and Leo Fender parted ways on friendly terms in early 1946. The Fender Electric Instrument Company was born.

The first electric guitar Fender made was the Esquire, styled after the Rickenbacker Bakelite with a detachable neck. In 1951, Fender invented and marketed the Broadcaster, a new solid-body guitar with Spanish styling, the first to go into commercial production. The Broadcaster was later renamed the Telecaster to avoid legal problems with Gretch and their trademarked “Broadkaster” drum kit. Bass players were soon delighted to a Fender electric bass also in 1951, allowing them to have the freedom and flexibility of sound volume and tone control at their fingertips.

The famous Stratocaster came about a few years later and became the hallmark of vintage electric guitars. Unfortunately, Leo Fender’s health was declining during his highlight years of making electric guitars and he sold the company to CBS in 1965. The years CBS owned the Fender guitar company were “less than stellar” because musicians soon found the parent company had little interest in them or making excellent musical instruments. In 1985, employees, loyal distributors and guitar aficionados bought back the company to return to the original goal set by Leo Fender, that is to make a superior musical instrument demanded by the best musicians in the world.

Although the present Fender company has come back to make extremely high quality musical instruments, the most prized Fender vintage guitars are those made up until January, 1965. Guitars made before January 5, 1965 were the original Fender masterpieces and those from that date until 1985 were a production of CBS. Master musicians and serious vintage electric guitar collectors highly desire Esquires, Telecasters and Stratocasters sporting Fender serial numbers from 1951 through 1964. Additional models like the Mustang introduced in 1964, the JazzMaster in 1958, the Jaguar, a new version of the JazzMaster introduced in 1962 are all rare finds and highly prized. In fact, the so-called “student” guitars like the Mustang, the MusicMaster and the DuoSonic of pre-1965 command high values because of their year of make and who made them.

After selling Fender Electric Musical Instruments Company to CBS, Leo Fender sat only briefly and started MusicMan Instruments and G & L Corporation. Neither company were financially successful like the original Fender company, but each has a who’s who list of famous musicians playing the vintage instruments. Leo Fender died March 21, 1991 from complications of Parkinson’s at the age of 81. While the end of his instrument making career were extremely stressful on him, he was and still is one of the top masters of the music revolution based upon vintage electric guitars.

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