I agree with you both in a lot of respects. I'm absolutely no gear snob. Look at this, my absolute favourite. Everyone else thinks it's a POS. I however love it and favour it over any other guitar I own or have ever played.



Cost me £200 fifteen years ago. I dont think you could even buy a Squier for that much then.

As for Customshop instruments there is a very real difference between them and regular productionline guitars. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a gearsnob that wont pay out, simply the antithesis of the gear snob who will only pay big bucks. Thats their choice. It's like that ancient and boring MIM/MIA topic and it's old. You cant buy a BMW for the cost of a Mini. Despite them both being made by the same people. People like their guitars, wherever they are made. You'll never catch me vehemently arguing against their choice. Except one time when I shot my mouth off to one particularly annoying individual and said something just to wind him up.
I'm honestly not like that. I get enjoyment from the most crappiest of instruments. Hence this woolworths thing from the 70's I decided to shim the neckpocket 3/8's" just to get it playable against the bodywarp.

...but you are paying for the name for the most part.

Isn't that true with anything Fender makes??

Uh-huh? Try Avalon Guitars in Northern Ireland. They're made by elves, trolls, pixies - pretty much all of the Little People:

that must be where Ritchie Blackmore does all his shopping now, maybe they made his clothes too?!

I got nowhere left to go with that one, man...

yes, if i had money i would go to custom shop...

Exactly why I went with Warmoth. I have custom shop quality guitars, made with the parts, pups etc.... that I chose and all the work was done by me. There's something extremely gratifying playing something like that. Granted, the amount of "building" I put in is nothing compared to what Ceri did but I consider it a build. My cherry burst Strat cost me a total of about $1800......that's with shipping to Japan.

Don't get my wrong, I love my Clapton model, but there's no way I could justify paying Custom Shop money after completing these 2 guitars and being able to compare them to Custom Shop models.
MULLY

As much as I like my SRV, I have to agree.The custom shop uses premier woods and are hand built.The Artist series are a bit above the American Standards in quality ,but you can get some of the CS guitars for about what a new SRV costs.To me the important thing is finding a guitar with the specs that suit you best.The Artist guitars offer specs that arent found on other guitars,same with the custom shop.It all depends on what you are looking for and what you can afford.