It was officially called the Marble Telecaster, but the swirling, multi-color finish that appeared on Fenders in 1984 quickly earned them the nickname Bowling Ball Telecaster.

Designer Darren Johansen developed the finish technique and brought it to Fender in 1984.

Fender committed to 300 instruments, 50 of which were Telecasters and 250 of which were Stratocasters. Most have a red-black-white or blue-black-yellow color scheme while a few (45 total) have a gold-silver-yellow finish.

The base model was the short-lived (1982-84) and ironically named Standard Telecaster, which featured a non-standard six-saddle bridge, with strings anchored at the bridge rather than through the body.

By 1985, when the Marble Teles and Marble Strats were shipped to dealers, the attention of Fender’s owners had been distracted from model design and refocused on selling the struggling company to a group of employees, and a followup order for marble-finish guitars was never placed.