I scroll through Reverb, eBay, and various local buy and sell sites on often during the week. I am just keeping my eyes open for anything that catches my interest. This popped up locally Tuesday, a beautifully checked MJT rendition of a 55' Fender Esquire. At first all I saw was 55 Esquire, the pictures, and the price, and I almost had a heart attack, since it was priced at about a tenth of what it should have been had it been an actual 55' Esquire.
For an MJT build, the price was pretty reasonable. So I went and tried it out. Long story short - I liked the build itself, but found the single pickup a bit limiting. The three-way was set up to wire the pots accordingly: [1] complete bypass, [2] normal volume/tone, or [3] volume and esquire tone cap. It does open up the possibilities, but I didn't like being limited to just these three settings. It had great spank, but was missing that "middle" position that I personally prefer.
So even though I loved the guitar - especially the neck - I couldn't see myself paying the asking price. I thanked him for the time, and explained that I genuinely loved everything about the guitar but for the pickup, and the fact that I had suddenly realized, I really don't think I could live with just a bridge pickup. That was exactly how he felt too - his original plan was to drop in a neck pickup, but he hadn't got around to that - the routing was already there - just needed a new pickguard.
Well, that put me back into ... maybe I should buy this... mode. If the routing is already there, I could plop in a McNelly T-Bar neck pickup, and sacrifice the esquire aesthetic on the altar of tone.... But I had already decided to walk away from it at that point, and though I suffered some momentary hesitation, I reasoned that to make it worth my while I'd be spending more on this guitar than I had originally intended. I think the seller saw my renewed interest, and was hoping this new revelation would be enough to secure my cash, so I apologized (I *am* Canadian) for taking up his time, and explained that even with the routing in place, I'd still have to buy and install at least on (but likely two) new pickups and that would push me over my budget, and as I didn't have the stomach to insult the seller with an the kind of offer that would allow me to buy it, I turned to go. As a final pitch, he asked, what kind of insulting offer I was considering. I named price that was realistic, and he said that if I threw in a pedal or two with that amount, he could swing it. I had a pedal or two lying around and so we made the deal.
I took it out for practice last night, to try it through my amp - it didn't have the warmed of my either of my ASAT Special's but it had a much better voice through my amp. The other guitarist hadn't been paying attention when I pulled it out, so when he looked over it was the best triple take I've ever seen.
The pictures don't really do it justice - it looks fantastic. When I first saw it, the shell pink was a turn off. But it has grown on me since.
If I do put in a neck pickup (I'm still humming and hawing) I'll make a post about it. For now I'm just happy to add another great player to the pack.
Is the headstock flames or is that an illusion? I’ve also been (accidentally) on a Fender vs. G&L kick; just seem to find a lot of Fender deals lately. As atonement you could try an ASAT Classic Neck MFD 
