Re: The differences between MIA, MIJ and MIM Teles
deftgala said:
There is no official reason for this, but here's the story as I know it (from various Internet sources):
In the 70's, the Japanese started producing a lot of Fender knock-off clones. They were like a Fender in almost every respect; the quality was excellent and their prices were better. To combat this, Fender decided to use the "if you can't beat them, join them" strategy, and began production in Japan in the early 80's. The Japanese plant produced official, licensed Fenders, initially for the Asian markets only.
After a while, Fender continued production on "modern" guitars at the US plant, and built their vintage reissues in Japan. After CBS divested itself of Fender in the mid 80's and the US plant was closed, the only guitars Fender made for an entire year were in Japan. When FMIC opened the new Corona plant to produce the American Standard line, Fender Japan continued producing the reissues. This practice continued into the 90's after the Mexican plant was opened (to produce budget models).
What happened is people started to notice that the Japanese Fenders were of a very high quality, rivaling that of even the US plant. Some believe the Japanese Fenders are second only to the US Custom Shop in terms of quality. This is no surprise, considering the skill and attention to detail of the Japanese workers, and their long history of producing high quality guitars even before Fender set up shop there. Unfortunately, this became a problem for Fender, because the American series was meant to be the high quality product, which was reflected in the pricing. The thinking was: why would anyone want to pay more money for an inferior product?
Sometime in recent years, FMIC concluded that the Japanese guitars were cutting into the market share of their own US models. This, coupled with a much lower production and distribution cost from Mexico prompted FMIC to stop distributing Japanese guitars to the American and European markets. The US guitars would continue as the high-quality, high-cost line, and the Mexican guitars continue as the budget line. Fender Japan still produces high-quality guitars for the Asian markets, but none are exported to the US. You can find a few on EBay from time to time, but in most cases the US models will cost you less. Quality is open to debate, butr the consensus is that Fender Japan still makes an excellent product.
Hope that makes sense, and isn't too boring to read.
