Let’s state the obvious – our current political climate is such that the Mexican Strat could shoot up in cost overnight, rendering this entire post obsolete. International trade is a pretty complicated thing, though some folks want to make it sound simple for political reasons.
There’s always been an untrue assumption that the workers in the Mexican factory can’t be as skilled as the workers in the American factory, even though in some cases they’ve been the same people. But one thing is not up for debate – labor is far cheaper in Mexico, where the minimum wage is something like $4 per hour. Both factories use CNC machines. Fender could make the exact same guitar in both factories and charge less for the MIM Strats because the labor costs are cheaper.
So why don’t they? Because they’re a company and they like money. So how do they differentiate? It used to be pretty easy to tell the difference – MIM Strats had cheaper hardware. But that’s changed. So in 2019, what’s the difference?
In theory, the American Strats still use better wood and have better trained people working on them, but in reality I don’t think either are true at this point. Fender has “allowed” the Mexican factory to put out instruments as good as the American line. They’ve compensated by raising prices. As long as the profits are good, I think Fender doesn’t care how they get there. That’s great for players.
For a long time, MIM Strats had, well, “un-rounded” neck edges. A sharp angle on the edges of the fretboard, so to speak. That was a dead giveaway for a cheaper guitar. Now some of the MIM Strats have rounded edges on their necks. Another dead giveaway was the skunk stripe on the back of the neck and how it felt. I have a MIM Tele where you can feel the skunk stripe. That’s no good – it’s distracting. You can learn to ignore it, but it’s annoying. Not always the case these days.
So now we’re at the point where maybe the country doesn’t matter, but the actual build of the guitar itself does. When buying any Strat or Tele, you want to look at the Official Budget Guitarist Strat/Tele Quality Checklist. That’s a much better measuring stick than looking at the headstock for the country of origin.
