ShortScale.org

Just yesterday I was asking about CAR Jaguars made in Japan without matching headstocks, and I found a real-life answer sooner than I expected:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FENDER-JAGUAR-O ... 19e31a0e26

The price seems good to me (or at least, I'm willing to pay it), and the photos, while not perfectly descriptive, seem to indicate pretty good condition.

CAR Jags aren't hard to come by, but I prefer a bare maple headstock and those are harder to find (before this year's AVRI, anyway). I plan on making an offer on this immediately (so please be a buddy and don't snipe me! but I wanted to know if anyone can spot any red flags first:

1) The serial number isn't clear in the photo and I would have preferred to look it up beforehand.
2) The production year isn't specified.

Nothing seems drastically wrong or suspicious beyond those two points. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

the SN# is Q034419

just hover your mouse over the photo to enlarge it

The serial number looks to begin with a Q and the "Crafted in Japan" decal is of a later style using a bigger/clearer font (it was previously smaller, more italicized and bold). Both of these point toward it being made between 2002-2004 and being part of the limited non-matching-stock LPB/CAR import run in the US during that time.

So yes, it seems totally legit.

if anyone else posts anything in this thread besides me and paul telling you anything else they are wrong.

shortscale to the rescue

ok wait i just looked at the price. 999.99 ???? wat?

10 year old cij jags are 999.99 now? that cant be right...

You guys have better eyes than me! I couldn't make out that "Q" for the life of me.

Anyway, thanks! My guess was the 2002-2004 as well, which would make this the exact model I'm looking for. Due to the somewhat hard-to-find nature of this particular model, I'm very much in favor of making the purchase.

Is your surprise over the $999 price tag that it's too high or too low, though? I've wanted to get a Jag forever but this will be my first so I'm still not an expert on pricing.

I did some digging of my own and it's looking now like $999 is way beyond what a CIJ Jag from 2002-2004 is worth. I Googled my way to a LPB version of the same model (in excellent condition) for sale at $550.

On the other hand, I so rarely see these particular models on eBay, so I'm still weighing it. We'll see.

In the meantime, any more perspective from the more experienced Jag players would be appreciated.

The gig bag says Gibson on it. The guitar says Fender on it.

RED FLAG!

That's probably the going rate over here in the UK, but I'd say it was rather steep for the USA.

Nick wrote:The gig bag says Gibson on it. The guitar says Fender on it.

RED FLAG!

You're telling me all this time I haven't been bidding on a Firebird? DAMMIT

Just got a Japanese Jag for under $800. Just have to keep an eye out for good deals.

It's not that hard to find AVRI Jags at that price point.

dragnet99 wrote:I did some digging of my own and it's looking now like $999 is way beyond what a CIJ Jag from 2002-2004 is worth. I Googled my way to a LPB version of the same model (in excellent condition) for sale at $550.
.

Whut? Your google skills far exceed mine, ya still got that link?

If you go to the Ishibashi U-Box site (click for link) and search "OCR" on the left, you will find an OCR MIJ Jaguar for ¥59810 ($600) used. It has a matching headstock though. They will ship it to you for $100-$150 and are fantastic with customer service. Once there was a problem with an instrument I bought used and I argued it with them - they refunded me $100 and went to a lot of trouble to do that.