1980 Fender F-50

Visited with a fellow guitar enthusiast last week who has been looking to sell his vintage Fender F-50 acoustic guitar.  The F-50 is a grand concert style guitar with a solid Spruce top, Rosewood back, sides, fingerboard, and bridge, and Mahogany neck, made in the USA.  It has the design and finish of a pre-war Martin 000 14-fret body, including the Martin style 28 herringbone body binding and the teardrop pickguard.  In fact, but for the Fender logo and V notch in the top of the headstock it is basically a Martin look-alike, which may explain why the F-50 was short-lived, only being produced in 1980.  All but one of the original Fender F Series guitar models were discontinued by 1981.  Fender then introduced a new "Standard F Series" in 1982 with a completely different headstock design with a swoop top.  The pick guard design was also changed to have a straight edge along part of the top.

This guitar had some significant cosmetic wear, but the natural finish top had turned an attractive golden hue.  The action was low and very playable.  The tone was bright, but a little muddled without the crisp note definition of my Martin 000-1 and a little tinny.  Overall, though, the guitar had an attractive Martinesque vintage feel.  As my friend was willing to part with it for a very reasonable price, I couldn't resist.  This weekend I loosened the truss rod to raise the action just a tad and eliminate some buzzing at the A and low E strings.  I also replaced the light Martin strings with medium Elixirs to get a warmer sound.  When I brought it along to a Saturday night gathering with friends, it was the toast of the evening.  The friends' son just back from college took a shine to it after giving it a go.  It would make a good replacement for his starter guitar as he has recently begun getting more serious about his playing.  It is also a perfect travel guitar, inexpensive and already broken in.  I left the guitar with him on trial and today he confirmed that it had found a good new home.  Mission accomplished.