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Post subject: Fender Japan website
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 5:04 am
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Roadie
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Hey guys, just a quick question. Are the guitars on the fender Japan website domestic market only(ie. for sale in Japan only)? Or are some of them export models? I know that you can import many of those guitars through various websites, but are they still intended to be for Japanese domestic market?

Cheers, Ray.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:09 am
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I believe that to be the case. FMIC permits only select models produced by Fuji-Gen to be sold domestically. Those instruments would include the Mustang, the Strat 12-string (currently discontinued), and the Geddy Lee Jazz Bass (now apparently made in Ensenada). These marketing protocols have been in place since the mid 1980's, when the then-new FMIC negotiated with its Japanese partners to produce guitars while Fender was restructuring its manufacturing facilities after the CBS divestiture.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:01 pm
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Guitars made in Fender Japan cannot be sold in the US as brand new. Of course there is no law, so it's certainly legal to purchase one. Fender Japan will drop any dealer caught doing so, they're fairly strict about this. If you want a MIJ Fender, you need to purchase it used.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:49 pm
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xenophobe wrote:
If you want a MIJ Fender, you need to purchase it used.



+1...unless you have an old buddy who spent some time in Japan and purchased several while there and then sold you one of his premo ones when he returned to the US!!!

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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:01 pm
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Cheers guys. I was just wondering because I saw on one of the other threads that someone had a "non export" mij, so I assumed there must have been export models.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 9:53 am
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There have been a number of MIJ models made available in the past, though I'm not sure if they were US specific or not. Sorry, not very up on Fender history. Most Fender Japan stuff is non-US market though. I have no idea if there are MIJ models distributed to other regions, but it is certainly possible.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Japan website
Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:02 am
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xenophobe wrote:
There have been a number of MIJ models made available in the past, though I'm not sure if they were US specific or not. Sorry, not very up on Fender history. Most Fender Japan stuff is non-US market though. I have no idea if there are MIJ models distributed to other regions, but it is certainly possible.


There was a time period when numerous Fender Japan models were sold in the USA. The MIJs first came in toward the tail end of the CBS era - but they were sold in the USA under the Squier name - namely the big headstock Squier Strats, the JV Strats (under the Squier name in the USA), and the Bullet line moved from USA to MIJ Squier in 1984 (essentially CBS's last year of Fender ownership).

When CBS sold Fender to FMIC (essentially the last management team plus some investors) in early February 1985 FMIC chose to not purchase the huge CBS factory; they just purchased the name, intellectual property, parts inventory (contrary to urban legend this would have been pots, tuners, switches, screws, hardware, maybe some pickups - CBS had been ramping down production during the summer if 1984, first laying off production personnel then slowly laying off assembly/QC personnel until the last instruments were completed in September 1984). While FMIC was getting their USA factory together they began importing numerous "Contemporary", "Standard", and "Reissue" models from Fender Japan. FMIC did get their new factory up and running in the fall of 1985, but they started with very limited production (per "The Stratocaster Chronicles" it was as low as 7 instruments a day) of the USA Reissue models. Of course Fender ramped up production of the USA Reissues during 1986, but USA production really stepped up at the end of 1986 when they began producing the new American Standard models in a run-up to their official introduction in January 1987. By mid-1987 Fender was up to 150 insturments per day at the Corona factory.

Even so Fender kept importing MIJ Fenders to fill out the lower cost spots of the model lineup - for example the Standard models and what would be equivalent to the current Classic series were MIJ until FMIC's factory in Ensenada Mexico come on-line in the early 1990s; by about 1994 the MIJ models were really cut down to things like Mustang, Jaguar, and Jazzmaster reissues . Also by then Squier had been moved to the MIK line. Today Fender still does have Fender Japan do a few models, usually they are unique items and often limited run items (done for one year then discontinued). A good example would have been the 2011 Pawnshop series - those were MIJ (and the models still around from the first series are still MIJ).


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