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Fender Jazz Bass made on China?
- Thread starter AfonsomiguelPT
- Start date
Always love a good Seinfeld reference. But I have a request, if you don't mind.
I also am not too well versed in spotting fake gear, but am interested in being better at doing it.
Would you mind telling me (us) the specifics of why this particular bass is a a fake?
Thank you.
The position of the logo is off, the tuners and serial number remind of an early/mid 2000's Affinity Series Squire.
Whatever it is, it’s not a Fender. The biggest giveaway is the headstock and tuners. The shape is off, and the logo decal is badly placed and a poor reproduction to boot. This style of decal logo was used until 1976, but the «F» neckplate was used from 1976 until about 1983 (though it’s also on some later models). The tuners are cheap, and of a type never used by Fender, and the serial number on the back of the headstock is not a Fender serial number. It’s difficult to say for sure from the angle of the picture, but the body shape also seems not quite right.
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Although Fender did make the ‘Modern Player’ series in China which did include a Jazz Bass, it looked like this:
Yours is not this. Yours appears to be fake as others have stated.
There are Chinese Fenders! But this ain’t one of ‘em. Easiest clue is the tuners, to my knowledge Fender never used those cheap closed back tuners, those were only on early ‘00s Squier basses (and shame on Fender if they ever did use them).
Guys thanks a lot, i will not buy This One.
You guys saved me 600€ thanks
You guys saved me 600€ thanks
Smooth_bass88
vaxx!
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May not be an actual Fender Jazz bass. Doesn’t mean it’s not a decent instrument.
Fake but I like the look of the pick guard on black and those are nice pickups. Not worth that cost.
As previously stated, Fender did have some instruments made in China... the Modern Player series, for sure. I have a Modern Player Jazz Bass. I have to admit that it is a great bass. The finish work is great. Even the pickups sound fantastic. Worst thing I can say is it weighs about 9.5-10 lbs. The one in question here looks wrong to my eyes.
That's exactly what it is. Squier Affinity (probably 2009, based on serial number). Made by Yako, Taiwan. It looks like someone has sprayed a gloss finish onto the headstock (which was originally satin). Judging by the pics they seem to have made a mess of it.
These Yako-Squiers can actually be very nice instruments (better than the current Affinity series IMO) if you upgrade the poor pickups. But re-sale value should probably be more like $150.
Those closed tuners have a very poor reputation but they usually just need a spray of WD40 to be good as new in my experience.
For $650 it's a scam though. In fact, with the Fender logo I think it may actually be classified as a counterfeit item and illegal to sell, at least without informing the buyer that it's a fake (although with Fender owning Squier I guess it may be a gray area, at least legally).
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Consider that we don't know the country of origin of the OP.Fake, plus it would have been made in China not on
But he has listed the price of the bass in Euros. So we can assume he is not from Portland.
It is possible that English is the second language.
But it's more likely that the o was stricken by accident when the i was intended.
They are next to each other on my keyboard, and perhaps his as well? I hit adjacent keys all the time.
This is on my iPad which has pretty well spaced letters. If the OP was on a phone, this problem is compounded.
The evidence I present in favor of the mistyped, adjacent letter argument is enhanced because there were two instances of the same mistype in his thread. You seemed to have keyed in on only one of them. Attention to detail seems an important trait to have when spotting fake instruments.
A little more info about why the bass is fake and less about mistyped words might go a little way towards enhancing international relations.
The fact that he only signed up today is not relevant to the above. But the first few responses might shape his first impressions of TB.
@AfonsomiguelPT Welcome to TB. Thanks for posting. Learning to spot fake instruments is a topic I find interesting. I'm glad you provided an example for the rest of us to consider and learn from.
In this case the CY serial number is a giveaway (C for China, Y for Yako). Basically a Squier Affinity made by Yako, Taiwan. They sold a ton of these basses back in the early 2000s. The current Squier Paranormals are also made by Yako and also have CY serial numbers. I believe Yako have facilities both in/on Taiwan and in Mainland China (I'm not 100% certain about this though, it's just based on things I've read online).
That type of closed tuners is also very typical for these early 2000s Squier Affinity series basses. They also had SLIGHTLY slimmer bodies than standard Fender specs and very slim necks. I really love these necks btw, particularly the P-basses in the same series!
As for why Taiwan = C for China... Well, that's very sensitive politics these days, which isn't allowed around here but basically you have the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). The latter is often referred to as Taiwan and not recognized by the PRC. That's just the simplified short version of course (in an attempt to be un-biased and not cause any political controversy).
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