Since I got my Tele a few years ago, I've slowly been modding it, and during this process, I've been finding interesting things about guitars that I've never realized. The differences in the bridges, the pickups, as well as the aesthetics of it. I've considered it an exporation and analysis of my OCD issues. I played a lot of Tele's as research for mine, and while it's a nuance, the knobs on my stock Mexican Telecaster bothered me.
Yes, the knobs. My G&L asat had some cool knobs with a pretty good knurl pattern on them, plenty of grip, and felt solid. My buddy Adam has some cool dome style tele knobs on his Keith Richards Inspired Telecaster. I played a few custom tele style guitars and a few had a nice big knurl on them, almost cheese grater-esque. So I went down the rabbit hole trying to find some cool knobs for my tele, as the stock ones, are, well, Stock. I tried to look around and find some that would satisfy my perhaps OCD tastes. I looked at the usual places, like Amazon, & Warmoth, as well as trying to find a smaller builder that might make specialty parts.
I'm a big fan of instagram. It's probably my fave Social media platform. I used to go nuts with fliters and settings, but while I think that's cool that we can all become a digital Ansel Adams, the big thing is sharing your art. I found a company in Texas that had an instagram post on some custom guitar knobs that they did for a customer. They inserted Subway tokens into the tops of some tele knobs.
Most households in the greater Boston area probably have a junk drawer or old coin jar with a few of these in there. In most cases, back in the day, you'd buy a few tokens at the beginning of any trip on the subway, and due to the MBTA being inefficient, you might be able to get through a turnstile without paying. Sometimes it was too late for the T and you'd get a ride or walk.
Regardless, these lil pieces of metal are now out of date, as the T uses Charlie cards for payment. The MBTA gift store does sell the old tokens as souvineurs. Presumably as gifts to friends and family that no longer live in the area as a reminder of sorts. As a Kid the subway token was a ticket to a city adventure, to someplace cool and interesting out of the suburbs. Years later I would take the T to work every day for 5 years, and I'll never forget it, this time for the over crowded trains, the rusty outdated cars, reduced schedules, the derailments, power failures, delays, the vomit on the subway platform (sometimes it was mine, but I digress). These days, the T is kind of a sore spot for me. The cost of commuting into Boston via the MBTA is not outweighing the option of driving into the city. But I still have fond memories when you'd see an establishing shot of a TV show like Spencer for Hire, or Cheers, and the red line was scooting across the Longfellow bridge.
Anyway I ended up with 7 tokens, My Mom found two in a coin dish, and my Dad, who is a coin collector, had 2 as well. I sent them all off to Armadillo Guitars in Austin Texas, with instructions as to which side of the tokens to be revealed on the knobs. The price was a bit high for guitar knobs, but considering these were hand made by an independent craftsman, I can stomach the cost.
So who gets what? So my Tele gets the two with the T logo:
My Fender Mustang has the Subway icon side:
The 3 MTA (a precursor to the MBTA) tokens will go on my white Strat. Right now THAT particular guitar is getting some Floyd Rose repairs at Adam's place. But when it comes back, I'll put them on. This pretty much finishes off the mods to the Mustang, and to the Floyd Rose Strat. The Tele still has some work in its future, With an electronics upgrade, that might mean new pickups, along with a possible pickguard and control plate change, but that's a post for another day.
If you're a maker of anything, this is an example of how to use a simple instagram post to generate actual customers. Don't discount the power of social media.
If you're looking for some unique knobs and parts here's Armadillio's info:
http://www.armadilloguitar.com/main/
