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One person who did more to create a musical revolution in the early days of electrical musical instruments was Clarence Leonidas Fender, or rather, Leo Fender. He and C. O. (Doc) Kauffman worked together to make and market a guitar and amplification system that had a clean, clear sound without feedback at higher volume. Before their successful solid body guitar, the electronic pick-ups would get vibrations from the guitar’s sound box as well as from the strings. By eliminating the sound box found on classical, Spanish-style guitars, they were able to control the feedback caused by secondary signals to the pick-ups. Amplifiers were then able to just get the vibrations from the strings which were clean and defined. That pure sound was then able to be amplified by the vintage guitar amplifiers.

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 Esquire was Fender Musical Instrument Company’s first unique product. While Leo Fender would argue its originality, it did resemble Rickenbacker’s Bakelite guitar. Like the Rickenbacker, the Esquire had a separate neck piece which made it much easier to make and fix. The Broadcaster also came out in 1951, but was quickly renamed the Telecaster to avoid further legal action from the Gretch Musical Instrument Company because of the similar name to their trademarked drum kit, named “Broadkaster”. Innovations continued that year with the Precision Bass, the first vintage electric bass guitar. Bass players were delighted to have volume and tone control at their fingertips as well as a more durable, much more compact instrument than the traditional stand-up bass.

The hallmark of vintage electric guitars, the original Fender Stratocaster, came a few years later. Leo Fender’s health, unfortunately, began to deteriorate during his highlight years of vintage guitar production. He sold the company to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in January, 1965. During the 20 years CBS owned Fender, serious musicians and music historians maintain the quality and innovation of the company fell well short of that during Leo Fender’s ownership. Musicians felt the parent company had little interest in their market needs of making superior electric guitars. Employees, loyal distributors and investors interested in returning Fender to the top bought the company back in 1985 to resume making the best electric guitars possible.

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.

Unfortunately, Leo Fender passed away March 21, 1991 at age 81 from complications of Parkinson’s disease but did get to see the success of his foresight and innovation. Fender had once again entered the top position of master guitar building and regained its name for superior musical instruments.

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