+1
No different than having various lines and models from a automobile manufacturer. Quite simply diversification. Few business survive these days that only market to one type of customer.

i play Squier Affinity HSS Strat and it sounds good for a $350 dollar guitar. my aunt bought it off her boyfriend for my bday which was 2 months ago in May

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Musos can be a pain!!!

But if you have 15,000 they will give you free Fenders

I bought a squier and changed out the neck, body and electroics and it was grand after that ~ I still have the original strap !!

Abe Lincoln's Axe: Same axe except for 3 new handles and two new heads!

I tried one of the higher end Squier Strats--I think it was the Affinity SSS. The two biggest problems were the strings were too high, and the pickups seemed to hum, not a lot, but noticeably. The first is just a setup effort, the second...I dunno.

The fit and finish were better than I expected but not nearly as good as my MIM Strat. The neck and headstock seemed to be finished very minimally. The most obvious clue it's not a Fender is the pick-guard is a single layer, not three layer.

Still, for a guitar selling for $250 to $275 it seemed like a reasonable value for the money...so when you are playing in the biker bar and don't want to bring your Eric Claption Signed Custom, this would definitely work.

if it was an affinity it wasn't one of the high end strats... i tried a bullet today and found them quite enjoyable... you can't really feel the body diference

I'm not sure what it was--they had it discounted down to $250-$275, but I hardly know the Squier lines. But it wasn't bad. Wasn't outstanding, but wasn't bad.

squire is an entry level starter guitar. but there better than that.

cant tell you how many times i seen parents at the guitar store buying way too much guitar for a kid that wants to play and then finds out what effort it takes to learn. then the guitar comes back and the parent takes a beating.

squire is a good answer to this problem.

also as stated above some people just dont have the cash.

there all doing it now. gretsch has there electromatic line gibson has epiphone and epiphone is doing the studio series which are junk in my opinion but good to learn on.

Of course, Gretsch is now a Fender line, like Squier.

Because the 1st time a non-guitarist parent walks into a music store with their pre-teen kid who 'wants to learn to play guitar', they are not going to be willing to spend alot of money*.

They will however recognize the Fender name, even if its preceeded by "Squier by...", and for $100-$120, plus a $75 used amp, a tuner, a strap, a book and some picks, be reasonably sure they got a decent guitar the kid will be excited about w/o investing a bunch of money.



*It is only later when the parent himself tries the Squier and realizes he CAN play too so gets involved in guitars as a primary hobby, sees how much higher-quality guitars cost, haltingly dumps down over $1200 for a Martin, then $1500 for a Les Paul plus $600 for a tube amp, and then $1300 for a Am Dlx Strat, does the idea that maybe the kid could upgrade since he is still playing (too)...THAT'S where the $400+ MIM Fenders and G&L Tributes start to shine!

The alternatives are to spend enormous amounts of time educating yourself enough to be able to HOPEFULLY buy a good used instrument at a fair and equivalent price along with decent used practice amp.

Alternatively, you can follow the path teachers always say "Start with an acoustic guitar". There are some surprisingly good, inexpensive ones that give great value....but acoustic guitar is a different instrument than the electric guitar, particularly solid body guitars....and you can't practice at night without disturbing the household.

I'd have to say I purchased a black squire strat in 2001 ripped out the pups and put vintage noisless pups in. It is a really nice sounding guitar, I think alot of this brand snobbery is unfortunate because the Squire line are solid instruments, is it as good as my Am Special? Of course not but we are talking apples and oranges at that point. For the money you'd be hard pressed to find a better ax in that price range. If the kids ever get the guitar bug, the first electric guitar I would hand them is the Squier, it makes no sense to go out and buy a MIM or better for a kid who is just starting out, let them get a feel for the guitar and some confidence in playing because without either they wouldn't really appreciate a higher end guitar. If it ends up being just a passing fad no worries dad will GLADLY add it to his collection and modify it .......hell i may just buy a squire and do it anyway

the higher end ones are amazing i tried a bullet didn't really supriese me but it's a good guitar

I think that theres something important that most all of you are missing...

Squier builds guitars in Indonesia and AFAIK China and sells guitars all over the world and in Asia, there are very high quality Squires, including limited edition guitars, in the shops that players here in the USA could only DREAM about!

Heres an example: Three years ago you could buy a Squier "Jimi Style" reversed headstock Strat, that would knock your sox off! Reverse-Big Headstock-reversed pole Vintage pickups, classic off white, Maple neck, the whole nine yards! You could have one shipped to you here in the US for about $700!

The Indonesian factory is building Teles and Strats under the Squire logo that easily put the MIM stuff to shame and thats exactly why you'll never see those guitars legally imported into the USA. Can you still buy one? Yes, AFAIK, theres still someone who'll import one for you and if anyones intereseted I should be able to look the guy up (Hes a famous Indonesian Musician.) but be prepared to pay up front and trust the sellers track record for delivering the goods.

Just because Fender kept the better inported Squiers out of the USA until they decided to tease us with the CV Series, dosnt mean that Squiers are crappy instruments. Just the opposite! The really good stuff is out there but importing it to the US would really upset things here in the US and European markets and it's highly unlikely that Fender could sell the guitars that theyre building here and in Mexico in Asia, because of quality and price issues.

Fender let the cat out of the bag with the original Squier "51" (Huge value for the $$$!) and theyve done it again with the CV's, so wake up. It's all about M-O-N-E-Y!

I cannot figure that out. Why not simply re-badge the Asian Squiers as "Fender" guitars and drop the Mexican lines? Then, they wouldn't have to compete with themselves and have less production lines, with better returns to scale. Maybe there's another reason????

I don't know...I just find the logic hard to follow.

Well, I'm not the person to answer technical business questions. I'm an artist! OTOH, there must be reasons!

Why dosnt Gibby build Epi's here in the USA? Because it's cheaper to build them in China, while reserving the valuable "Gibson" name for US built guitars. Why? because US built Gibson's are legendary and therefore command top prices here and all over the world. It's the same with US made Fenders. Just try pricing a Fender on the UK market! Whoooo!! AFAIK, theres no real reason for the high prices except that Fender can demand it and the marketplace supports it. (Yes, I have four or five Fenders and Squiers my-own-self.)

Now look at this.... If youve seen and played any of the Chinese built Epi accoustics, you already know that theyre some of the best accoustics on the market. Rivaling those of Martin, and many of the boutique builders but they cost peanuts by comparison. How? Because the materials are sourced through China and paid for with yen and skilled Chinese workers can be employed for very, very low wages. (You'd be astounded how low!) Whatever... For my money the Chi-Com Epi's sound better and are built better than any of the current Gibson offerings but as they say, "Thats business!" If you need the Gibson headstock, youre gonna pay through the nose.

{Personally, after owning several expensive Martin accoustic guitars, I sold em all and bought an Epi 500RI. It's the best accoustic guitar I've ever owned and it only cost $800!}

Think about this... Fender has it's historic home here in the US but most of the guitars it sells are built in sunny, drug infested MEXICO and then brought into this country under the Nafta agreement, before being distributed all over the world. Why? Because a Mexican worker is paid a fraction of what an American might make, there are no unions, corporate and environmental laws are looser and taxes in Mexico are much lower than here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Amer ... _Agreement)

We're into guitars but the corporations building them are into making M_O_N_E_Y!!!!