My Pissed off Guitar Story!!!!aka fender japan sucks ass
Ok, so i am at a disadvantage when it comes to guitars. I like lots of switching options, I have small hands and fingers, and I'm left-handed.
For years i've struggled with a lefty squire strat which i spent quite a bit of dough on and which lovingly came brand new with a cracked neck, no fitting trem arms (something fender/squire conventiently no longer make), and literally only my volume knob and part of my 5-way selector actually wired to the pickups. (in other words, i could only play with 1 of my 3 pickups on at a time, and no character.). oh, and no warrenty or help from squire or fender.
So lately i've been getting more and more pissed at the strat (and strats in general) and decided i needed a Mustang that i would personalize later. i like the small body and neck, not to mention the most perfect bridge and trem ever designed, and i'd put different pickups and jaguar guts into it.
Now mustangs are student guitars and theoretically should not cost more than 500 bucks. But the problem is, they haven't been made in awhile an back around 1996, Fender decided that lefties only play strats and teles and weren't deserving of any fender models that were comfortable or didn't sound like crap (i.e. jaguars, jazzmasters, mustangs, cyclones, etc.)
So i started looking at the used circuit. Here was a problem. see, this left-handed douchebag whom i sorta admire named Kurt Cobain purchased and/or smashed nearly every single lefty mustang ever made in the united states. Thanks a lot *******.
this means that the average lefty mustang, regardless of how or when it was built usually goes for 15 hundred or more. for this price you may as well just call up the fender custom shop and send em the deed to your house and your left nut in the mail.
Then hope, Fender Japan still makes like, every fender model in both varites, save for the CBS era models and the outdated Bronco, Musicmaster, and Duosonic. Whatever, ****em.
So i started calling dealers and such who dealt with them.
SURPRISE!!! Japanese isolationism and xenophobia live on. They only sell certain models to the United States and refuse to ship others to dealers.
translation: the only way i could get a lefty mustang from japan would be to go on the ****ing internet, pay in Yen. then pay the conversion fee, then pay shipping, then pay any tarrifs/duties, etc. end price-3 grand minimum.
Discrimination.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Last edited by Darth Jello on Sep 15th, 2006 at 08:20 AM
nightmare...i can sympathise being a lefty as well...right now my ONLY options in my town as a washburn D10S acoustic...a tanglewood electro acoustic...a bog standard black and white fender strat or a black schecter scorpion
all of them total binners
although i still haven't made up my mind about a lefty second hand jap import 92 fender tele (from the year when the jap models were superior to the american ones)
Is it a thinline or just a regular tele with no contouring
also, keep in mind that SG's/G's are fairly simetrical and so are danelectros which sound pretty good, especially the danelectro 12 string. you'll probably have to pay an extra 30 bucks to get it set up and flip the bridge and nut, but it should be better than some crappy washburn.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
the 3 i currently have are the aforementioned tanglewood electro -acoustic...a fender strat replica...and my best is a custom hand built esteve electro-acoustic cutaway classical...
the reason i'm in 2 minds about the tele is because its a toss up between that and getting a resonator for playing slide blues
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I've got a pissed off guitar story as well, I bought an old strat body off ebay with the intention of doing a Van Halen paint job on it but since I'm a lefty as well I'm never gonna be able to find a decent neck.
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__________________
Post in the Indiana Jones forum.
i'd say no on the tele. it seems pretty thick and awkward. The neck pickup also seems suspiciously CBS era.
As for that strat body, I would put like, a Gibson SG style neck on it cause they're better for staying in tune anyway and aren't angled, creating tone problems like a fender neck.
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
Fender Japan does not suck. Your willingness to follow up and do some research is lacking. I'm a lefty and have imported 3 Fenders from Ishibashi. You get the currency conversion from typing "currency conversion" in Google. You can pay Ishibashi by credit card. The guitar arrives within a week. It's actually in US Customs 2 days after you order. The most I paid was $910 for a new Candy Apple Red Jazzmaster. The two strats were only $614 each (including shipping fees) Customs fees only apply to guitars with a retail value of $600 or over ( NOT including shipping cost) US Customs is sloppy and misses most of these shipments. Maybe 25% of buyers have to pay. I had to pay $60 is Customs fees for the Jazzmaster and none on the strats. Your Mustang would run around $716 and you might have to pay a Customs fee. Big whoop. Quit whining. First, look here: http://www.guitarjapan.com/fenderja..._left-hand.html
You can buy online from them.
If you see a model you like, you can also request a quote from their competitor to see if you can beat the price here: http://www.ishibashi-music.com/
You're welcome.
Last edited by leftyG on Oct 15th, 2006 at 07:05 AM
Re: My Pissed off Guitar Story!!!!aka fender japan sucks ass
Fender Japan is under contract to supply the japanese market. Fender doesn't allow them to sell their instruments here. The Japanese instruments are higher quality
You're a bit of an idiot. You buy a Fender guitar and realize that it's crap quality, so what do you do? Go buy another fender guitar. That'll show em!
Shhhh! You don't want anyone to know that the Fender Custom shop is about the same quality of the average japanese production model. They might realize that Fender USA sucks, that all those Dan Brown/Fullerton/corona factory "collectibles" Fender USA was making are pure garbage and then start bidding up all the real guitars that are currently selling for pennies on the dollar.
I'll never buy another American strat unless it's pre-cbs. Everything else is overpriced garbage of medium quality.
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Sep 15th, 2006 08:16 AM
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