I have yet to confirm this, so I'd run it by the Strat Forum. I was trying to find the street value of my '96 Deluxe Series Tex-Mex Strat. While I played other MIM and MIA strats and noticed the nut width on the Tex-Mex being almost like an American Standard strat. I didn't think much of it though at the time. After doing some web surfing, it was claimed by a few different people that this guitar is 100% American parts assembled in Mexico. Is there any merit to such a claim?

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Nut widths vary from model to model, Not all Squiers/ MIMs/MIAs have the same nut width. The Tex Mexs do have American parts but also Mexican parts as well, and were built in Mexico. They eventually became the Jimmie Vaughan strats.

I wonder what parts? Fretwire? Necks? Body? Tremolo?

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Before the following becomes, "Infallible Web Dogma", I must state my disclaimer: I have no bonafide proof of it.

IMO, there is a lot more than meets the eye in terms of what is MIA and imported on ANY so-called American made guitar or bass. YMMV.

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As far as I know its just the bridge and the Tuners. The bridge is the same AVRI bridge used on reissues and the tuners were Gotoh ( Technically Japanese but the same used on AVRIs). The necks back then were rough cut in the USA factory but all the finishing and shaping was done in Mexico.

No one seems to have proof, it could very well be an old tale from the internet. I do know there was a mexican strat assembled in the U.S. labeled as MIA, but its really not... Not sure about this one though. Never saw anything on the forum about it. I got the guitar by chance from a friend who bought it from Craigslist under the heading of a MIM Standard Strat.... Fender confirmed via SN its a Tex-Mex from '96.

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You're talking about the California series. They are very much real. All American Parts that were sent down to Mexico for painting and then reassembled in the US. They Have AMX serial numbers.

I think what Martian is talking about is how the parts of a US stratocaster aren't all made in the US. Tuners can be Schaller or Gotoh ( Germany or Japan), pots are CTS which are made in Mexico, African/ Indian Rosewood etc Many of the components which make up a US strat are not sourced from the US, simply a lot of times because there is no US equivalent anymore.

Yes. This and just the whole principle of outsourcing as much of any given guitar's components as possible, shipping it all here and then assembling it here so it can be said that said instrument is American made.

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But was there ever a reverse situation of American strats being assembled in Mexico? I remember a year where Squire's were made in USA.

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NOTHING would surprise me. Again, I can't prove it but in terms of simple dollars and sense, why not?

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So just like the answer to the age old question, "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" , the world may never know.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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