MIJ/CIJ vs. USA Fender

GavRichList

ThorpyFX said:

HarrySeven said:

ThorpyFX said:

I'm not sure if this thread was triggered by my advert for a CIJ Jazzmaster.......or if its coincidence this thread appears the morning after I post one for sale.

Just coincidence - spotted your ad afterwards! I'd just been browsing eBay/Gumtree and felt moved to post something...

I've shown my paranoia..... 

I'll give you £500 for it

HarrySeven

GavRichList said:

ThorpyFX said:

I'm not sure if this thread was triggered by my advert for a CIJ Jazzmaster.......or if its coincidence this thread appears the morning after I post one for sale.

I'll give you £500 for it

I'll raise that £500!

£550, a tin of pineapple chunks and a copy of the Beano.

GavRichList

HarrySeven said:

GavRichList said:

ThorpyFX said:

I'm not sure if this thread was triggered by my advert for a CIJ Jazzmaster.......or if its coincidence this thread appears the morning after I post one for sale.

I'll give you £500 for it

I'll raise that £500!

£550, a tin of pineapple chunks and a copy of the Beano.

Too rich for me, that

Jack_

There's only one country where Fender produced the Pink Paisley and the Blue Floral, so on that basis, because colour/finish is everything, Japanese made Fender's are the best.

EDIT: Oh, and this Jazzmaster:

johnhe

A crucial part of the appeal of MIJ/CIJ instruments is that they are slightly less common, slightly harder to come by and sometimes have different finishes than the MIM guitars. That all makes for a guitar which some people would be slightly more proud off, since they didn't just pick it out of a line up of MIM guitars on the wall of a superstore.

i personally think that the paint finishes and the neck carves on the MIJ/CIJ strats and teles I've owned were slightly nicer than those on the MIM guitars I own. On the other hand, the pickups and electronics on the MIJ strats I owned were awful. 

The 3 strats I've now owned for years are all MIM, so I guess that says it all. 

koneguitarist

I can't vouch for all the new models, but one of my biggest regrets was moving a MIJ 62 custom reissue tele to raise. Ash to get an original 54tele in a poodle case. The MIJ was far far superior as a tele.
take each guitar on its merits, an old original strat was mass produced and not brilliant quality, some were good some were quite poor in my experience, yet I have never played a poor MIJ, some not as good as others but none were bad. 
A guy part ex'd his 63 strat for a JV 62reissue not because it was better but because he could see no benefit or advantage in the '63 strat over something that looked and sounded almost exactly the same. 

SteveRobinson

Jack_ said:

There's only one country where Fender produced the Pink Paisley and the Blue Floral, so on that basis, because colour/finish is everything, Japanese made Fender's are the best.

The original Paisley guitars were made in the USA in the 1960s

Richardj

The US and MiM guitars are actually made by Fender though aren't they.  AFIK the Japanese ones are made under license by the likes of Fujugen in the same plant as a lot of other brands. In the same way as the PRS SE range.

They are also made from basswood and sen ash, which are decent tonewoods, but not the same as US and MiM.

If you have to factor in changing the hardware and electrics to make them better what is the point of the increasing values?

TonyR

I own a CIJ '65 Reissue Strat that I bought new a few years back (there was a dealer at the time importing them into the UK). 

It's totally standard with Texas Special pickups, build quality is superb.

I particularly wanted this model not just because 1965 is my birth year, but it's slightly different in that it has a bound fretboard.

I really love it and I'm glad I bought it.

koneguitarist

There seems to be a concious decision to change the pecking order of the range that Fender produces. USA, Mexico, Japan, China. 
But quite a few years back MIM was not a patch on MIJ, now it seems to be going other way. 

zenzeypher

Richardj said:

The US and MiM guitars are actually made by Fender though aren't they.  AFIK the Japanese ones are made under license by the likes of Fujugen in the same plant as a lot of other brands. In the same way as the PRS SE range.

They are also made from basswood and sen ash, which are decent tonewoods, but not the same as US and MiM.

True but alot of MIM guitars are multi-piece bodies with a veneer... 7 pieces upwards. This is why I have no issue recommending Squier CV to people over many MIM guitars. I stripped a standard MIM and that thing had about 8 chunks of wood under it. Nothing like that MIJ style.

thermionic

The MIJ/CIJ guitars are analogous to the MIM Classic Series, not the Standards though. I've owned 3 MIM Classics, and all were 2 or 3 piece bodies. The recent prices I've seen suggest that a bog standard MIJ CAR offset with lacklustre pickups and cheap wiring is now practically the same quality as an AVRI.

I haven't played MIJ guitars in any detail but I find it staggering that people will pay £900+ for a dinged and paint chipped MIJ/CIJ when you can get a MIM Classic for half that. Or about £300 less even if you buy a new one. 

Octafish

Richardj said:

They are also made from basswood and sen ash, which are decent tonewoods, but not the same as US and MiM.

Some are/were, plenty are made from alder, both mine are. The ones made from basswood are usually the bottom of the range models and the ones more commonly imported to the UK.

Octafish

zenzeypher said:

True but alot of MIM guitars are multi-piece bodies with a veneer... 7 pieces upwards. This is why I have no issue recommending Squier CV to people over many MIM guitars. I stripped a standard MIM and that thing had about 8 chunks of wood under it. Nothing like that MIJ style.

I've always assumed they use up offcuts from 3 piece alder bodies to make MIM standard? In fact wasn't just standards, most of the MIMs bar Classic/Classic player used to have multi piece/veneer bodies (just the standards do now) and even 1990s US standards had such bodies. You can tell on any sunburst model because the belly cut on the back is blacked out.

I can't link the photo, but if you look at the top right of this google image search page you can see a photo from the Mexico factory of multi piece Strat bodies https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fender+mexico+body&biw=1280&bih=914&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjV0NfboN3RAhWXHsAKHdsHCIIQ_AUICCgB

zenzeypher

zenzeypher

I think it really varies on what they have available... 

Kylef

There was a big difference in quality with a MIJ Jag I had and an AVRI I had. Even an electronic change wouldn't have got it close.

However my Pink Pailsley is one of the best guitars I have, granted it has Fralin's and CTS pots in it now but I do prefer it over my AV52 Tele.

Where the price hike has come from I don't know, I bought my Paisley in '02 for £499, now you they are for sale for £1035. Bizarre.

koneguitarist

Years ago I did a test with some of my customers when I had a shop. We all played  5 strats and discussed them, good points bad points etc, then I asked them to go behind a door to tell me which I was playing. 
For reference I had an 84 USA std, a '77 USA, a squire silver series a JV strat and a tokai 70's replica. Everyone told me different guitars, so you can understand how pissed off they were when I said come out, and they saw me playing a Gibson! 
I can't tell if a pot is cheap if it works fine, same with a capacitor, if it works that's good enough. 
Woods? Strats were made out of Ash and Alder, yet I have heard great strats made out of Maple, Sycamore, basswood etc, I have heard great strat tone with EMG's and Cheap pickups. 
Point I am making is there is no real difference between a lot of strats or other guitars but the player himself knows what he likes and what he doesn't and that can often cloud the judgement. 

ICBM

That's absolutely true. The way a guitar vibrates in your hand can make it "sound" very different to you, and yet to someone else listening - let alone on a recording - it may be indistinguishable.

I feel that way about this debate - I've never felt a MIJ Fender that really resonated 'right' in my hands, but when other people play them they sound fine. It's in the wood - and possibly the truss rod, which has a surprising bearing on the tone in my opinion... and I'm really not joking. @melvynhiscock wrote something to the same effect in his book years ago, and I think he's right. The neck and the way it resonates is a key part of the tone of the guitar - more than the body, I think - and the truss rod is definitely a part of that. It's probably one of the reasons Rickenbackers sound so distinctive - because of their unique double rods.

But it doesn't come out in the amplified tone anywhere near as much.

lasermonkey

I have three Jazzmasters: a 2008 AVRI thin skin, a 1986 MIJ and a 1994/5 CIJ.
 To me, the AVRI is the better guitar. It just feels and sounds like a higher quality instrument. That said, the '86 MIJ is closer to the AVRI (pickups excepted) than the '94/5 CIJ. There's a visual difference- comparing all three, the CIJ looks to be thinner. Certainly the profile around the tummy cut is noticably different, with the "lip" being thinner. The electrics in the older Japanese JM were better quality too. 
Of course, now I have a set of Mojo pickups in the older Japanese JM, the difference between that and the AVRI isn't anywhere near as marked.
As an aside, I also have a Mexican made VI. While the woodwork feels really nice, I'm not overly keen on the bridge and tremolo. They feel somewhat less substantial than those on my Jazzmasters (and Jaguar). Maybe I'm imagining it, but I'm tempted to replace both.