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New Fender MIJ in the States

sonar

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Jan 10, 2003
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CME just sent me an email advertising MIJ Fender. Not quite the bargain they were in the 90's at almost twice the price players used to buy them for back in the day. They appear to be the "ST-**" vintage spec models with basswood bodies and (I assume) crappy electronics. Pretty much the same models that were imported into the States from the late 80's to mid 90's, although they stopped using the snot green pickguards. The hardware has been standardized with the MIM vintage spec line, so if you wreck the whammy bar you can easily grab a replacement.

Compared to the MIM equivalent these MIJ's are about $25 more. The MIM have alder bodies and much better electronics/pickups (again, assuming these are the regular Japan vintage spec) but if you want a dark fingerboard MIM's use Pao Ferro, whereas MIJ are still advertised as Rosewood.

Fwiw my MIJ (made in 2015) is considerably lighter than the majority of MIM Strat's I've picked up. It's also been my experience that Basswood body Strat's are less likely to give you that "plinky" tone when paired with a non-50's style Strat wound pickups, but of course ymmv.

And Fender Japan has and continues to do great jobs on the vintage custom colors.
 
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