Jimmy Patrick Paige would tend to disagree...
Then again he could play Achilles with a ukele and bring a tear to my eye.
Jimmy Page actually played a Telecaster on many occasions, especially in the studio. The solo on "Stairway.." was actually played on a Tele.
with very sincere respect to you luxstang , I can't entirely agree with the idea that placing a high price on something will automatically make it more desirable. As my dad used to say "No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd".
You are basically right about polishing the turd. But Gibson actually does keep the prices high on purpose, so customers think that owning a Gibson is something special.
Henry Juszkiewicz (CEO of Gibson) even admits it freely.
Unfortunately people fall for it. It's the way the market works. Many of those guitars are polished turds and no amount of polishing will change that.
Then again I am the first to agree that some Gibsons out there are just awesome.
.. anyway doesn't God play a Rickenbacker Bass
No god ever played bass. Never! Being a god means being almighty means not having to compromise. I rest my case.
Lemmy is cool though.
No mine says "Fender" on it. I've been told though that there are slight differences between the American made Fenders and the Mexican made ones. Quality is about the same but they use different woods I believe. The Mexican ones are cheaper probably because of the cheaper labor costs to produce them. That's my guess anyway.
The bodies for the Mexican guitars are made in Mexico but the necks are actually made at the Corona plant in California and shipped down south. The reason is that the production capacity for necks in Corona is enough to supply for both production lines.
Bodies are made from the same woods than the US ones, at least from the same species of woods.
The price difference comes from the lower labor cost on the bodies (handling, paining process etc) and the time spent on setting them up.
The final setup after assembly of a mexican Fender is approx 5 minutes whereas in the US it is almost three times as much (even more on the Custom Shop models).
The performance of a guitar, very much like that of a car depends mostly on the way it is set up. A proper setup is quite time consuming and time is money.
That means that a Mexico Fender will, among other details, have the nut slotted higher than its American counterpart because a deeper slot will bring the strings closer to the frets and is more likely to create fret buzz on the strings. As a consequence people would return those guitars to the store on a waranty claim.
Thus those guitars will handle a little less comfortably than more expensive ones. It's simply a matter of playing it safe.
But the potential is basically the same.
I did some setups on Mexico Fenders and once they are set up properly most of them are on a par with the US made guitars. Only this setup takes time and must be "custom made" for every single guitar, which is impossible on a production guitar.
When I was at the Corona plant in California, one of the guys expained that to us and even told one of the visitors that he would guarantee him if he set the customers Strat up professionally the guy would not be able to tell the difference between his Mexico Strat and a US one.
This being said, a friend of mine had an average Mexico Strat that I set up for him. After about an hour of my time, that guitar was one of the top 5 best Strats I had ever played in my entire life (and I have played more than my share of Strats, even vintage ones).
I've been wanting to buy that guitar from him ever since but he won't give it away now, of course.
As you can see, I know much more about guitars than cars.
My advice: Get a professional setup on your guitars. It's worth the few dollars. You'll be amazed how much potential that guitar can have.