Photos from Musik Messe now uploaded to our Facebook page.
Musk Messe itself was a bit underwhelming for me. I had my meetings and checked out a few things, but apart from the Custom Shop relic Teles, nothing really wowed me. I was impressed with the quality of the Chinese made Fender Modern Player Series, although knowing the superb quality of the Squier CV series I should not have been. Personally I think they are overpriced though – not because of the quality, but because the production costs in China are well below Mexico. Of course, since 2008 Fender have been steadily increasing the prices of the Standard line, and repositioning Squier into that price bracket. I suspect this is a continuation of that approach, and the Modern Series will increase to current Standard prices while the Standards increase even more.
I think the event was smaller than last year – hall 4.1 (the second guitar centric hall) seemed to have about 1/3 closed off, which I am sure was not the same last year. I also definitely noticed that a few vendors from last year were absent – there were noticeably fewer sellers of bodies and necks this year. World economy or Fender cracking down? I don’t know, but I was very surprised last year that vendors were brazenly offering after market necks with Fender headstock shapes and no license agreement. This year I only saw 2, and one had the necks tucked away out of sight and only brought them out to show interested parties.
The knock on effect was that I found few suppliers to talk to about having some custom necks built, to my own specs, and with my own headstocks. My main hardware supplier indicated that they may be able to accommodate me, so in the coming weeks I hope to have a sample or two of custom necks and bodies. I just have to find someone who can interpret the designs into CAD files for me.
Fingers crossed!
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