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Squier Guitar Shops
Squier are a second-line brand that work under the Fender name, they produce models mostly derived from the Fender line but at a significantly lower cost, however they are still of a high quality for the price you pay for your guitars. Fender acquired the Squier brand name
in the mid to late 1960s when it bought a USA based string making firm,
but it lay dormant for many years. Before the Fender Squier series were
introduced in 1982, Fender were making lower priced guitars such as the
Fender Lead series
at their Fullerton California plant. Until the introduction of the
Fender Squier guitars, Fender had never produced lower priced guitars
based on their main Stratocaster and Telecaster designs and had always used different model designs for their lower priced guitars. During the 70's and 80's Fender faced stiff competition from lower priced Japanese made guitars, the lower priced Fender designs could not compete with these low cost imports so Fender decided to move low cost production to Japan and create the Squier brand to market guitars under.
Fender began
negotiations with several Japanese musical instrument distributors and
reached an agreement with Yamano Gakki and Kanda Shokai to establish
Fender Japan. Yamano Gakki are also known for once being part of Epiphone Japan.
Kanda Shokai own the Greco brand name and one of the conditions of the
Fender Japan agreement was that Kanda Shokai cease production of its
own Greco Fender copy guitars The first Fender Japan guitars produced were the Squier JV series.
These were very accurate reproductions of classic 1950s and 1960s
Fender guitar models. Soon after a second Squier series followed and these
were called the SQ series as seen from the prefix to their serial
numbers. They were generally reproductions of 1970s models with the
main difference being that they had Japanese Squier made pickups whereas the
initial JV series used Fender American made pickups. Over time the
Squier series has slowly evolved to include original model designs and production has moved from Japan to various other Asian countries such as Korea and China. Squier have earned a reputation for themselves as fine makers of guitars in their own right and for many their first guitars will be of the Squier type.
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