My guitar collection - G&L
The Broadcaster was developed in the middle of the shred-crazy 1980s. As such, allowing for an optional vibrato would not be out of the ordinary. And one could have easily used G&L’s tried and true Dual-Fulcrum Vibrato. This is one of only 57 Broadcasters with a “Black Krome” Kahler™ 2320 flat mount fine-tuner vibrato. The Rarebird page for the Broadcaster on the Guitars by Leo (GbL) website claims “there are only seven Kahler-equipped Broadcasters with maple fretboards.” Although this claim is refuted below, whichever way you cut it, this is a very rare guitar. And it is a true Broadcaster; all but the neck and board are Black of course. Beyond the Kahler unit, the soft maple body has 2 Jumbo Magnetic Field Design (MFD) pickups, a single-ply plastic pickguard, and a black powder-coated aluminum control panel with the Broadcaster wiring harness consisting of a 3-position pickup selector, volume control, and tone control. The hard-rock maple neck has a 7½” maple fingerboard. The strings are tuned by a set of black anodized G&L branded closed tuning machines and then firmly held in place by the Leo Fender string lock mechanism.
Broadcaster w/Kahler & maple fingerboard
The story behind this guitar
Year:
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This story is the reverse of the story told for the ASAT w/Kahler & ebony board. After completing the early-ASAT in all configurations, the Broadcaster collection needed to be augmented with Kahler equipped versions. The first step was set in early-2017 when Olivia’s Vintage offered this pristine, minty Broadcaster on Reverb. There are a couple of interesting observations to be made. First, when counting the number of Broadcasters with a Kahler vibrato and maple fingerboard in the GbL Registry, this was the 9th instrument added; clearly more than the quoted limit of “seven” (7) above. And by early-2019, the number had crept up to 12! But keep in mind the total of 57 Broadcasters w/Kahler quoted above is higher than the number from 2 other sources too. Interesting commonalities exist between this guitar and BC00207 and BC00211. All have “the builder” (Leo or Lee Crabtree) as a cosigner in the pocket and the same dates on the inspection sticker. Likely they were all assembled by Lee on the same day. All have only 6 screws to attach the single-ply plastic pickguard instead of 8 screws used later on. Not surprisingly a great sounding guitar with lots of mojo. The Kahler in combination with a #2 neck, i.e. 7½” radius fingerboard, is not the greatest. But as long as you are not dive bombing, it adds a nice warble.
The story behind this guitar
1985
BC00204
JUN 17 1985
7-17-85, marked ‘Built by LC Crabtree’
