Re: are MIM's shit?

Post by **mynameisjonas** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:50 am

i had a MIM classic 60s tele, but i didn't hold on to it very long. it was one of the duds for sure. the neck had a lot of dead spots, and the sound was very unbalanced overall. one of my best friends has the exact same guitar and his is great, definitely on par with my CIJ jazzmaster... so i guess it's just a matter of finding the right one.

fourmations · Post by **fourmations** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:58 am

thanks for the feedback all

so its not really a mail order proposition? pity!
theres no decent selection of guitars where I live
and the prices are really inflated in the shops here in dublin

rgds

4

Deckard · Post by **Deckard** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 4:19 am

I have a MIM Tele and i'm very happy with it. I may not know too much about guitars, but i'm not sure what more i could ask of it tbh. It seems like with alot of fender products, while American made instruments are probably always superior, the difference doesn't seem to justify the price. Alot of your costs on a MIA guitar is labour. When i was looking for information on Tele's pretty much everything i read said that the difference between MIM and MIA was minimal. Certainly not enough to spend twice as much on a MIA.

VintagePete · Post by **VintagePete** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 4:34 am

Hi!
I had MIM Deluxe Strat and it was great.My son still has is MIM Standard Strat and it sounds flat.
It seems that you have 2 levels of quality.
The main thing is the value for re-sale.MIM are not to hot for that.
Regards!
VintagePetel

pullover · Post by **pullover** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:18 am

fourmations wrote: thanks for the feedback all

so its not really a mail order proposition? pity!
theres no decent selection of guitars where I live
and the prices are really inflated in the shops here in dublin

rgds

4

I wouldn't hesitate to mail order one. Ideally you should play any guitar before buying, even American. If you don't have that option, then just go for it, there are so many quality controls in place that it's pretty rare to get a bad one. Bad ones do occur but it's nothing that can't be easily fixed or sold off.

Stratelejazzuar · Post by **Stratelejazzuar** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:15 am

Would there be a major price difference between the MIM and CIJ teles? And if you have to mail order, i'd just get one from Japan (i.e. the Ishibashi route).
A lot of the Japanese models come with texas specials already installed, so you won't have poor quality MIM pickups to replace...
And generally, CIJ guitars come with a gig bag, cloth and allen keys... MIM's usually only come with the gig bag...

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:47 am

Deckard wrote: American made instruments are probably always superior,

Definetly not the case. I've played more $900 american clunkers than "bad" MIMs.

Stratelejazzuar · Post by **Stratelejazzuar** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:56 am

Yeah, whenever I've pick up an american, there's always something that doesn't feel right... usually the neck, but cuz of those duds i tried, i'm less inlcined to pick up an american. So
i guess a few bad apples spoiled the bunch for me!

the closest thing to american fender i own is a SRV body that i made a partscaster out of... has a MIJ tele neck on it,

oh, and my duo sonic body is american, from 40 years ago, heh...

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:01 am

I ahd one of those!

Deckard · Post by **Deckard** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 9:51 am

aen wrote:
Deckard wrote: American made instruments are probably always superior,
Definetly not the case. I've played more $900 american clunkers than "bad" MIMs.

I mean quality guitar compared to quality guitar. The US ones are gonna have better pickups etc compared to their MIJ/MIM counterparts, but not necessarily enough difference to justify the huge mark up in all cases. That was basically my point. I don't think anyone should be put off by MIM/MIJ because their production seems to be top notch. You're basically getting a discounted fender because its got cheaper parts and it was made outside the US, not because its a shonky budget guitar that Fender are knocking out on the cheap.

Stratelejazzuar · Post by **Stratelejazzuar** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 11:23 am

Good point. I remember a seller on ebay saying something to the effect of: 'Back in the day, Leo had mexicans/immigrants working in his US shop. now it's the same thing, but in a different factory that's about 3 hours away"

One thing i've noticed from spending too much time on ebay, it seems a lot of US bodies are in the 4-4.5 lb range, whereas a lot of the MIM ones are closer to 5 lbs. Maybe that figures into the price jump justification somehow - less weight=more $$ and "premium wood"

stevejamsecono · Post by **stevejamsecono** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 12:17 pm

My MIM Telecaster has served me faithfully since I was in High School, definetly a fantastic instrument. I agree that it's a matter of "play until you find one that you like."
Granted, in how I got mine, someone played it for me. Really bizarre story. I feel like everyone has their one like "sounds like it couldn't be real" guitar-related story, so here's mine:

Cut back to five or six years ago, not entirely sure when. At the time I had an Epiphone Les Paul Special II and a Shecter Omen Six (yeah, real choice axes at the time, but I was young, and foolish...). For my entire life in guitars up until that point, I had lusted after an Arctic White Telecaster, but they never seemed to have one on sale at my local Guitar Center (again, young, and foolish). So one day I decide to walk into the local Daddy's Junky Music (shrewsbury, MA), to see what they had. Low and behold I see it. Sitting down with a cranked Peavey Amp is this old, semi-toothless black blues musician, wailing on an Arctic White Telecaster. He was getting some killer tone, and just ripping it up on the thing. I was quite stunned and just sat and watched the guy play for about twenty minutes, at which point he noticed me staring at him and stopped. He stood up to put the guitar back on the rack, and said to me, "That there is the best guitar in this store." and left. Clearly seeing this as the sign from the heavens I had been waiting for, I picked it up. It was easily one of the better playing Telecasters I had ever held in my hands. The action was nice and low, little hum to speak of, just an all around great workhorse. So obviously, I drove home as fast as I could, grabbed my two guitars, and swapped them (wth some cash... lousy bastards ripped me off as they usually do) for the Telecaster.

It's been a happy marriage ever since

-Steve

RumorsOFsurF · Post by **RumorsOFsurF** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 2:23 pm

stevejamsecono wrote: My MIM Telecaster has served me faithfully since I was in High School, definetly a fantastic instrument. I agree that it's a matter of "play until you find one that you like."
Granted, in how I got mine, someone played it for me. Really bizarre story. I feel like everyone has their one like "sounds like it couldn't be real" guitar-related story, so here's mine:

Cut back to five or six years ago, not entirely sure when. At the time I had an Epiphone Les Paul Special II and a Shecter Omen Six (yeah, real choice axes at the time, but I was young, and foolish...). For my entire life in guitars up until that point, I had lusted after an Arctic White Telecaster, but they never seemed to have one on sale at my local Guitar Center (again, young, and foolish). So one day I decide to walk into the local Daddy's Junky Music (shrewsbury, MA), to see what they had. Low and behold I see it. Sitting down with a cranked Peavey Amp is this old, semi-toothless black blues musician, wailing on an Arctic White Telecaster. He was getting some killer tone, and just ripping it up on the thing. I was quite stunned and just sat and watched the guy play for about twenty minutes, at which point he noticed me staring at him and stopped. He stood up to put the guitar back on the rack, and said to me, "That there is the best guitar in this store." and left. Clearly seeing this as the sign from the heavens I had been waiting for, I picked it up. It was easily one of the better playing Telecasters I had ever held in my hands. The action was nice and low, little hum to speak of, just an all around great workhorse. So obviously, I drove home as fast as I could, grabbed my two guitars, and swapped them (wth some cash... lousy bastards ripped me off as they usually do) for the Telecaster.

It's been a happy marriage ever since

-Steve

That's identical to my MIM Standard...I bought the tort guard recently on Ebay (Warmoth

)...

ManBearPig · Post by **ManBearPig** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:10 pm

My first strat was a MIM and it was great, until I had to adjust the truss rod... You might want to avoid doing that =D

I'm not against them really, but they are the bottom floor, they would admit that just as fast as I do....

mjet · Post by **mjet** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:18 pm

ManBearPig wrote: My first strat was a MIM and it was great, until I had to adjust the truss rod... You might want to avoid doing that =D

I'm not against them really, but they are the bottom floor, they would admit that just as fast as I do....

I'd say that the most standard MIM stuff is leagues ahead of the Squier Indonesia/China stuff...