Fender Custom Shop Violinmaster Telecaster MB Yuriy Shishkov Aged Antique Natural

This beautiful hand-made instrument is inspired by and crafted in tribute to the famous “Gibson-Huberman” Stradivarius violin built by Antonio Stradivari in 1713 and now owned by Grammy award-winning violinist Joshua Bell.

The storied violin is so named for an early owner, British violinist George Alfred Gibson, and most famously for a subsequent owner, Polish violinist Bronisław Huberman, from whom the instrument was stolen twice—first in 1919 in Vienna (recovered shortly thereafter), and again in 1936 in New York, when it was taken from Huberman’s dressing room during a performance at Carnegie Hall. He never saw it again. The violin was recovered in 1985 after the thief—a violin player himself who used shoe polish to disguise the instrument for 50 years—made a deathbed confession. After a nine-month restoration in the late 1980s, the instrument was sold at auction to British violinist Norbert Brainin.

Bell acquired the violin in 2001, and it is he who gave the exclusive privilege of examining the instrument to Fender Custom Shop principal master builder Yuriy Shishkov, who has captured the 300-year-old violin’s essence in the Violinmaster Telecaster. The guitar is fashioned with the look and feel of a Stradivari violin, from the same materials and sources used by the great Italian luthier more than three centuries ago.

Its hollow flame maple body has a carved “Stradivari” spruce top from northern Italy’s Fiemme Valley, with proportionately scaled Stradivarius violin f-holes and purfling. The neck is constructed of Bosnian flame maple with an oval “C”-shaped profile, headstock truss rod adjustment and no skunk stripe. The 9.5”-radius round-laminated ebony fingerboard has 22 medium jumbo frets. Both neck and body feature an authentic European hand-polished violin varnish “Antiqued” finish.

Three passive piezo pickups and two TV Jones® Thunder’Blade pickups offer a wide variety of tonal options, with three-way pickup switching. Additional features include a custom Fender “patent pending” floating bridge with interchangeable saddles, black tuning machines with ebony buttons, graphite nut and disc string tree. Also includes a custom flight case, mini violin case for the interchangeable bridge saddles and certificate of authenticity.