EpiEric

It wasn't even called Broadcaster for that long. They changed to the Broadcaster name in November of 1950 (previously it was the Esquire, then the single pickup model remained Esquire while two pickup became Broadcaster) and Nocasters, like you said, were being shipped by mid '51. I've always heard the reason for the "Nocaster" was mainly that Leo was really cheap and never wanted to waste anything, so he just snipped "Broadcaster" off the decals, leaving just "Fender" to use up the existing ones before using new ones.