What’s your cheapest guitar?

[Boogie]

Ah ok, not the MIJ Strat I was thinking of.

This was a copy, not a real Strat, or the famous Fuji-Gen factory product. Some really fine quality came out of there, but the industry blamed a lot of poor quality on the Asian importers at the time. Hong Kong was good at routing grey market product through legitimate channels and mom-n-pop shops got what they thought were Japanese Strats. Cut ‘em open and you found compressed sawdust, aka particleboard. Then they changed the headstock to keep Fender lawyers from seizing all of it, and that’s what I bought for $199.

Can't help but feel that's a bit unfair on the Japanese. Some of the 70s stuff was of questionable quality, but by the 80s they were producing some really fantastic guitars. Lots of models using Brazilian rosewood and Honduran mahogany. A lot of the stuff from that era is commanding very high prices now. I have a 1980 built '59 335 copy that sells for nearly $3000 these days.

I was a freshman in college in ‘82 when I bought this. The market was still flush with Hondo LP copies and Crate amps and other crap that poor students fell victim to. Luckily, I had my real Les Paul to keep me happy.

I may be mis-quoting. But I believe that the F company went to Japan to see how they were making a certain double cutaway guitar so well, during that era. It may have been the Fuji-Gen factory.

I remember the news of Fenders exploits in this department were kinda hush-hush. For a while, buyers didn’t quite know what Fender was doing - or going to do - which softened their market, giving way to the super Strat builders. I built 2 FrankenStrats the next year that I dearly love. Played one of them today!

I think you're right. That eventually became Fender Japan.

That’s what I recall. Still, I wasn’t compelled to buy anything from that era or factory. Valley Arts caught my eye.

 

[markie]

Cort Parlour Guitar

 

[Parralax view]

My very cheapest is an unknown vintage Squier Indonesian strat. It's butt ugly in that brown mahogany stained plywood with black hardware. The only reason I bought it was that two of the pickups in it were originally in my 95 AMSTD Strat that I changed out to Van Zandt's. I gave the pickups to a buddy and he put two of them in that cheap strat, the other is lost to the mists. I paid him 60 bucks for the guitar just for the pickups. I never play it, it's wired strangely, with the 2 position almost wah sounding. Me thinks someone played Reggae on it cause it's perfect for that and there are lots and lots of up strokes on the pickguard..The action was flat as a board when I bought it which told me someone with little experience set it up to be "Low action", but just created a pinging mess. Once corrected, it played decently, but it's a junker of the first order with good pickups in it. The hummer in the bridge is junk too..

 

[Matty_B_1966]

I have...I am embarrassed to say...an Epi Strat from Mars Music....$99...its like a freekin Timex watch!!!

 

[Wakester]

I have...I am embarrassed to say...an Epi Strat from Mars Music....$99...its like a freekin Timex watch!!!

I had one of those too. With the hockey stick head and a Floyd Rose Trem and locking Nut. I could not keep it in tune, or keep strings on it. I finally sold it to my brother-in-law for $25.

 

[Boogie]

I have...I am embarrassed to say...an Epi Strat from Mars Music....$99...its like a freekin Timex watch!!!

Nothing embarrassing about that! An Epi SG was my youngest son’s first guitar and it was a great guitar for the $$. Way better than what I started with and it played very well. We Frankenstein-ed the heck out of it and it saw a lot of action until he lost it in a house fire. Regardless, we joke a lot about Epiphone, but they’re nothing to be ashamed of buying.