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Fender logos on Squier basses...

#201
Question: how many Fender owners remove your Fender decal when you change pickups, tuners, bridges, etc.? Not taking sides. Just thought it was a fair question. BTW I own one pre CBS Fender Jazz, one '95 MIA Fender Precision, 1 '05, MIM Fender Jazz, and 1 Squire Affinity Precision. Each of them have their original badges, and none of them have been modified, except that the Pre CBS Jazz has been refinished, and the '95 MIA Precision has a new Fender pick guard. They each have their own weaknesses and strengths, but I like all of them for one reason or another.
 
#202
i was thinking about this again last night before nodding off... something else to consider: Has anyone stopped to think that Fender actually benefits from people doing this to their Squiers? It re-inforces the superiority of the Fender brand, to the point that people pay their own time and money to advertise their name for them.

They surely don't want the knock-off builders putting Fender's name on their builds - that is outright fraud and does genuinely take dollars out of their pockets - but when someone buys a Fender-built Squier and upgrades the instrument to flash the Fender logo, how much do they lose vs how much do they gain? My hunch is that they make (as much) or more selling a high quality Squier than they do an MIM, and the person doing this to their own Squier is not taking away their sale of an MIA instrument, since they're not in the same cost bracket.

People in this very thread have commented how they have bought lower cost models exactly because they couldn't afford the US or custom shop equivalents. It's not like every bassist has only one bass... these sorts of models allow FMIC to sell multiple instruments to the same loyal customer, who then turns around and markets their brand for them, further reinforcing their status as THE bass.

Fender and Squier simply can't offer every variation of instrument that their customer may want, from different finishes to pickups to bridges to tuners and if that customer STILL wants to brand it as a Fender, then both the customer and Fender benefit from this.

The only other thing I can think of that is so highly customized is motorcycles and all the custom bike shops out there, but since Harley doesn't have a "junior" brand, it's impossible to know if those buyers would be up-labeling their junior bikes to H-D. They sure do benefit from the brand recognition they get, to the point that people refer to a lot of custom bikes as "Harleys".
 
#203
I wouldn't do it. If I'm playing a Squire, it's because I like the bass. I feel it's disengenuious to the brand to swap the decal for a Fender. I do recall in High School alot of the guitarists would be very brand sensitive and would even put masking tape over the logo of a Strat clone, but I would hope that's just the age group.
 
#205
BIGEJ2 said:
It actually devalues the brand.

Ask Coach, Rolex and Nike what they think of counterfeits or having their logo used on an unauthentic product.
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We're talking about Fender made Squier products, not counterfeits made in secret factories and smuggled into the country.

FMIC still makes the money from the sale of every Squier that we're talking about here.

If Fender decided tomorrow to dispense with the Squier name entirely and simply refer to them as Made-in-Indonesia Fenders, everything would be golden though, right?
 
#206
New Squiers have two Fender logos on their headstocks, one on the front and one at the back. And as everyone probably knows, Squier is owned by Fender. So Fender is making unauthentic Fenders under the Squier brand? Or is it allright as long as the logo is so small that you have to be close to see it?

If you replace pickups and hardware on a Fender with something else and you keep the logo, isn't that also deceitful? If you modify everything on a Squier except the neck, and you keep the Squier decal - what about that? Someone might hear you play your Squier and get the idea to get one for themselves, not knowing that the only thing Squier on yours was the neck.

This way of thinking implies that any modification to an instrument is counterfeiting if one doesn't remove the original logo or decal.
 
#208
To answer the post above. If you have a Fender and replace pickups and hardware, it's still a Fender. Do you make it a non-Fender by replacing the strings with Ernie Ball? No....The key is the body and neck- those are id'ed by the serial number exclusive to Fender.

Pickups, bridges, knobs don't have serial numbers attached to it, so if you replace it with Fender parts, it's obviously still a Fender. With different 3rd party parts, it becomes a "modified" Fender. (hopefully improved which can actually increases the overall value of the instrument)
 
#209
Maxdusty said:
To answer the post above. If you have a Fender and replace pickups and hardware, it's still a Fender, but with non-Fender modifications. The key is the body and neck- those are id'ed by the serial number exclusive to Fender. Pickups, bridges, knobs don't have serial numbers attached to it, so if you replace it with Fender parts, it's obviously still a Fender. With different 3rd party parts, it becomes a "modified" Fender.
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So it's a Fender, not a fake.
Don't know what's your idea here. Are you selling fakes?
 
#212
djg714 said:
So it's a Fender, not a fake.
Don't know what's your idea here. Are you selling fakes?
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lol.. let's make it a bit clearer. If the body and neck are Fender and the serial number on the sticker is valid and applies to that specific instrument, then the bass is still a Fender. It's not a fake. Regardless if you upgrade the pickups, bridge, knobs, pickguard etc. it's still legally a Fender but with modifications.

And no, I don't sell Fenders nor fakes, I use Fenders and Squiers (with Squier stickers intact) personally. I don't care what the darn label says, if it sounds good, that's all that matters.
 
#213
Maxdusty said:
lol.. let's make it a bit clearer. If the body and neck are Fender and the serial number on the sticker is valid and applies to that specific instrument, then the bass is still a Fender. It's not a fake. Regardless if you upgrade the pickups, bridge, knobs, pickguard etc. it's still legally a Fender but with modifications.
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Exactly. But this applies to legality, not to what some people regard as deceit. Everybody agrees that you can't legally put a Fender decal on something else and sell it to someone as a Fender. But when someone says it's dishonerst and/or deceitful to even use an instrument with a non-original logo, it must also in principle be dishonerst to use an instrument that's modded in any other way as well - simply because what you see is not what you hear.
 
#215
I have a lot of pride in being able to make low and mid priced instruments sound good, so I don't understand the "snob appeal" of replacing heastock decals. I prefer having people know that I'm using a cheap bass guitar.

I've had to fight hard to keep from laughing when "gear snobs" asked if "OLP" or "LTD" were custom builders. :D
 
#217
wcriley said:
I have a lot of pride in being able to make low and mid priced instruments sound good, so I don't understand the "snob appeal" of replacing heastock decals. I prefer having people know that I'm using a cheap bass guitar.

I've had to fight hard to keep from laughing when "gear snobs" asked if "OLP" or "LTD" were custom builders. :D
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lol..I have a Dr. Tech $99 bass and I love playing it because it's going against the grain of what gear snobs think. I'm not a great bassist, but generally, it's talent that makes any bass sound good.
I don't use stickers, or attempt to deceive anyone that I'm playing a brand of instrument that it isn't- to me, it's pointless. I'm proud of my Dr. Tech logo as ugly as it looks.
I have a Fender, a real one, I just don't play it all that much to be honest with you, but there is a quality or solidness to it I can appreciate. Perhaps I'll buck the trend and put a Squier sticker on it.
 
#218
Munjibunga said:
If you're playing a Squier, you'll still be playing one after you change the logo. Is changing the logo going to assuage your feelings of inadequacy?
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Ha, if anything else, I personally fear being exposed! I have a Squier neck that came with a Fender logo on it. I hesitated, but wanted that kind of neck for that price at the time ... I figured I would be replacing just about everything with Fender (or Fender OEM like Quarter-Pounders) parts, but still ... I'm getting rid of it, but I feel like it's a gray area, in that I didn't put it on myself.
 
#220
The thing about Squire is when I pick one up and play it, it feels like a Fender. And Squires are right there on the Fender website along with the other gear. So I think it should say Squire on headstock because that's what Fender calls it.
 

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