Leo & Ted’s is a specialist dealer of new and used high quality electric guitars, run by guitar enthusiasts because we love doing it, not particularly to make a pile of money (although, thinking about it…). We try to keep overheads as low as possible so we can offer our guitars at sensible prices (and pay a fair price if you want to sell us a guitar or trade one in). As buyers ourselves we know the difference between good and bad service and we’ll do our best to make dealing with Leo & Ted’s as painless as possible!
We specialise in marketing instruments from some premium British builders – partly because we like to get to know the folks building the guitars we sell and we think it’s important to support UK luthiers, but mainly because they make great value, amazing guitars!
As you may have guessed, the name of our business is a nod of appreciation towards Mr. Leo Fender and Mr. Ted McCarty, the two gentlemen who in our humble opinion shaped the sound of modern music as we know it. We’re delighted to offer some great pre-owned examples of their guitars with quality used guitars from Fender, Gibson and other well known brands.
If you like what you see here on our website, there are three ways to get your hands on Leo & Ted’s products:
You can visit us at our private Northampton guitar showroom. Home for us is a small but perfectly formed facility in Moulton Park Business Centre which can be found just to the north of Northampton at NN3 6AQ, easily accessible from the M1, M6 and A14. We operate on an appointment only basis so please get in touch to arrange to come in if you’d like to try out a guitar. Predominantly a workshop and storeroom, our base is equipped with a wonderful boutique demo amp built by our friends over at 633 Engineering so plenty of quality tone on tap.
You can meet us at many of the specialist guitar shows that happen up and down the country, where you’ll find a table or two of Leo & Ted’s guitars. We think these occasions represent greet opportunities to mingle with fellow guitar nuts and see some really cool gear. We take along our 633 demo amp, together with on Ox Box and some headphones, so no matter how noisy the environment you can try the guitars out. Look at our the News section of the website to see which shows Leo & Ted’s will be at.
You can, of course, order any of our guitars here from the website. The prices you see include insured UK delivery (usually next day with DHL). If you’re further afield a shipping charge will be added at checkout, or you can contact us for a specific delivery quote. We’re happy to ship, well packed and insured, using a reputable parcel carrier but we prefer where possible to make the delivery ourselves to see the guitar safely into your hands, and to make sure you’re happy with it. We also quite like meeting our customers! We’ll get in touch once you’ve placed an order if this is possible.
The people behind Leo & Ted’s are Tim Forster and Terry Cattle, both lifelong guitar players and Telecaster enthusiasts. Terry can be seen with his custom build Gordon Smith Classic T gigging around Northamptonshire and surrounding areas knocking out loud and proud rock covers with his band MLC, whilst Tim retired from live music many years ago after reaching a career pinnacle by performing on the same stage as The Rolling Stones (sadly about 15 years after The Stones played on it). Both of us are trained in guitar maintenance to make sure the guitars sold by Leo & Ted’s are set up properly and well-presented. Should any of our stock need particular attention, we work with a network of highly skilled and experienced guitar techs and luthiers. Our objective is that when you get a guitar from Leo & Ted’s, it’s technically perfect (even if it looks like it’s had a hard life…).
We appreciate that buying a guitar from Leo & Ted’s represents a serious outlay, and we want you to love your new guitar. Where possible we’ll try to organise things so you can try the guitar for size before you buy (either by trying it out in the showroom or at a show). If you buy from the website we’ll try to deliver it in person, so we can make sure you’re happy with your purchase. If the only option is to deliver with a parcel carrier (well packed and insured) and once delivered you decide the guitar isn’t for you after trying it out at home, we’ll give you a full refund (using your original payment method) provided a) you inform us within 24 hours of the delivery of the guitar, b) you call us to discuss the return so we can agree the best way of getting the guitar back to us and c) we get the guitar (and case, contents etc) back in the same condition we shipped them out to you in. If you choose to return a guitar you are responsible for the return shipping costs and insurance (although we’ll help you try to minimise these by collecting it ourselves if practically possible).