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Post subject: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:00 am
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It's 2017, I live in the United States, I play left-handed and I want an affordable Jazzmaster. I think there should be a paragraph break here to allow anyone reading this time to finish laughing and wiping their eyes.

I went through the regular Fender channels and was told the usual. There's no NOS from Japan and Fender is not willing to commit any additional resources to making anything left-handed. Go through the custom shop etc.

On a whim, I drove 35 miles to my nearest Fender Custom Shop dealer and asked for an estimate on what would basically be a left-handed Squier Vintage Modified Jazzmaster. The only "custom" requests that I made were for the tailpiece to have a tremolo lock and for all the routing to be done, but for no bridge or pickups to be included; basically a $399.99 guitar with about $150 in parts missing.
The clerk at the shop gave me a preliminary estimate of $6-$10 thousand and a build time of up to 24 months, but assured me that he would take down my details and that Fender would email me with an actual estimate with a quick turnaround time. No one has ever emailed me.

What would justify a markup of over 2000% and such poor customer service?


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Post subject: Re: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 10:51 am
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Well I can't explain the poor customer service but the idea of the custom shop building you a guitar for $300 is unrealistic.
They have tooling set up for standard shapes and sizes and even then you are likely to pay $4k
Imagine going to a car plant and asking them to produce a car with your design features and doing it for less than the price of a normal car.
Hopefully I do not sound harsh or critical.
There are other brands that imitate the jazzmaster for around the price you mention so maybe you can look at one of those as an alternative. :D


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Post subject: Re: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:00 pm
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jimmy_james wrote:
Well I can't explain the poor customer service but the idea of the custom shop building you a guitar for $300 is unrealistic.
They have tooling set up for standard shapes and sizes and even then you are likely to pay $4k
Imagine going to a car plant and asking them to produce a car with your design features and doing it for less than the price of a normal car.
Hopefully I do not sound harsh or critical.
There are other brands that imitate the jazzmaster for around the price you mention so maybe you can look at one of those as an alternative. :D


$4 thousand for a guitar with no bridge and no pickups that used to be made on an assembly line in Japan.
Alternatives are actually harder to get than you would think with many builders and manufacturers refusing to build left-handed models. I was also under the impression that Fender had become a virtual lawsuit mill in regards to combatting these alternatives.


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Post subject: Re: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 12:56 pm
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I could be wrong, but I don't think the Custom Shop would sell an incomplete instrument. They would have no control over how it turns out. That could be a reason for zero response from them. They certainly do not sell individual parts, only complete guitars, as far as I know.


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Post subject: Re: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:31 pm
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Correct!
To the op did you try a search for left handed revelation jazzmaster? :D


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Post subject: Re: My Custom Shop Experience
Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:53 am
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This is probably the worst kind of entry to this forum, but here goes...

OP, I think you should read up on Fender Custom and other guitar manufacturer's Custom Shop in general. Your concept is just way off.

It's not like they'd paint you a 300 dollar guitar in a different color. What you'd get for this price is a Custom Shop guitar. It's just a different thing altogether.

It's ridiculous to consider this a markup of 2000%.


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