depending on how they play, they dont look like bad guitars!


I'd buy the "Jaguar" special if the price was right.

Yeah, nowadays the Chinese are producing fakes of everything from Fenders to golf clubs. I cant recall the last time I logged onto the Les Paul forum and didnt see a thread about a fake posted on craigslist or ebay. As long Hillary Clinton takes special trips to China to beg them to buy American bonds, I dont think its going to get any better. Unfortunately, the fakes keep getting better and better, and more Americans are seeing the profit potential of buying a LP Custom copy for $250, and passing it off to some poor sap as the real thing for $3000+.
Just a couple of thoughts:
Gibson/ Fender have no outlets to claim intellectual property rights violations on a company in China, nor is it in their best interests to do so. Fender makes $0 when you buy a used strat off of ebay. However, if an individual is in the market for a strat, and is scared of getting a wang chung fu custom shop, he/ she is much more likely to go to an authorized dealer for the new git.
Things will only get worse. My friend sent me a link to pix of a fake MIM standard! If they will fake a $400 guitar, they will fake anything.
Fortunately, there are many recources that you can use to verify authenticity. Always check with fender to make sure things are legit. Post pix (before the sale!!!) on the forum for feedback. The Gibson crew is pretty good at spotting fakes, and I will bet this bunch is, too.
Lastly, if the seller has a sob story about hard times, and is unloading a git for a price thats too good to be true, than its a fake 99.86% of the time.

Aside from the con angle i really dont see much wrong with other manufacturers raising the bar. Obviously passing cheap guitars off as being high end is wrong. I'd like to think fender could only respond to a manufacturer selling £200 guitars that play and sound as good as theirs by in turn producing higher quality instruments.

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No no and no

philwarner was the forum member who ended up with the fake Jaguar Special Edition Stratocaster.

Here's his thread: http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... php?t=5631

with pictures!

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

I think esp took out a court action on payless guitars and won. I cant find em now. I'd like one of those jag strats for the right money. As i remember payless were really pay a lot less. £200 tops. You cant buy a merc for the price of a kia.

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No no and no

I see why they are fake.
the guitar look like gretch made them

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Squire Strat
Jasmine Takamine
Cherry Red American Standard Strat

The issue is not quality. The issue is that a Chinese company is producing goods from the cheapest materials that are meant to pass as goods made by an American company from premium materials. How good do you think these fakes are? I would bet even money that they are sh*t instruments. These guitars are made to LOOK like fenders, thats it. If you could produce a guitar with the same features, playability, look, and sound of a Stratocaster for $200, than Fender would close down in a month.
Go on ioffer.com and do a search for Gibson Les Paul. Do you really think that a guitar that costs less than $100 to build will have the same tone and quality of a real Gibson? If so, than I have some guitars for sale, buddy.

My current opinion of gibson doesnt make for much to beat. I fully understood your point but overseas competition is directly responsible for the high quality instruments we buy from fmic today. That was my point. I even said in my post that i faking guitars is not right. So why take objection to my point?

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No no and no

I guess the con angle is the only angle that I see. My response was in reference to your comment about foreign companies "raising the bar"
In this case, its an issue of making a similar looking bar with intention of selling it as the bar. I agree, competition can mean improvement of goods, and thats good for consumers. However, this is a different case that is based on deception, not competition.

The point Niki made though is based on real history. it was late 70's and early 80's Japanese Stratocaster copies that led to the development of Fender japan. Companies were killing Fender in a bunch of markets with low cost, but high quality(some go as far as to say as good as or better,in some cases, than Fenders of the time,) instruments. Fender forged partnerships with a couple of the companies, and using the very factories that were pumping out the fakes,most notably the FujiGen factory, launched the line of Japanese Stratocasters that revitalized the entire line. The Japanese models became the standard by which the entire companies line were measured. one could even argue that in light of the poor reputation the American Strats had under CBS and the seeming lack of direction the company had at the time, it was only the existence of the Japanese fakes that stopped the Fender company from fading away.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I happen to have one of those 85 MIJs in my collection and would have no problem with comparing it with the strat CBS was putting out in that year. Poster Chet has several from that era. Ask him what he thinks of thier quality! All of a sudden CBS fender did buy the plant in Japan and all Fenders were better produced after that.

Right on BigJay! Both sides of the coin has its merit.
Blessed be the peace makers!