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I just got my brother's Affinity Strat off him, and love it! It needs some work (pickups and such) but it's a keeper.

Nothing wrong with Squiers, some play better than others though. They are great guitars to mod and stuff. I might get one and buy a warmoth scalloped neck and new pickups for it.

The first electric guitar I bought was a Squier Tele that I bought 6 years ago. I don't play it all that much anymore, but it's a great guitar. When I bought it, I played every high dollar Fender in the house and kept coming back to it.

my guitar teach has a red squire that is one of the best strats i have ever played (probable only second to mine). this includes old ones and new americans.....

pretty good for the price

My first guitar was (is) a Squier Affinity Strat. At the time I loved it. 3 1/2 years later, when it's not my #1, it stays in tune for about 5 minutes and sounds like crap compared to my Schecter. Surprisingly, it plays well. I have it tuned to drop C for whenever I feel like playing stuff in that tuning. But hey if it's lasted this long and I'm still using it, it must be good for the price.

The stuff coming out of the Asian factories these days is pretty remarkable. You are definitely getting a lot of quality for your money in most cases.

The shop I frequent once had a Squier Tele on the counter that had two P-90's factory installed. Since it was on the counter instead of up on the racks, I asked if someone had bought it. The salesperson replied no - it was on the counter because all the staff members had been playing it all day. Eventually, one of their guys who mostly owned high-end Gibson and Gretsch hollow-bodies bought it. Price: $275 CAN.

The early 80's Squiers where Excellent! My main Guitar for years was my trusty 84' SQ series Squier. It's the large headstock (CBS) Bullet trust rod
model 3 bolt micro tilt. IMHO it's a better guitar than most 70's Strats I've
played. It's in semi-retierment now . (Needs a fret job)

the early squires are better than most new fenders imo

They sure can be. Just like most lower end guitars and really even some high end ones, you just have to be a little diligent when you look at them.

I just bought a squier about 2 months ago at GC. They had about a gazillion of them, so i probably tried about 20 squiers, about 10-15 MIM strats and another 10 american strats between GC and Sam Ash. Out of all the mim's i like about 2 of them. Out of all the Squiers i liked about 3. 2 were deluxe models, one of which i bought and the other was a model right below the deluxe with the upgraded hardware, not sure what model that was, but it was nice too. The bad thing here is the quality really varied from guitar to guitar, whick you will probably find more in lower end guitars as opposed to the higher ones i guess.

The deluxe model i bought has a really nice flamed top with a vintage tobacco finish and large headstock. I played this one back and forth with the american strats and was convinced that for the money, i wasnt losing much if anything really compared to the 1 grand guitar. I bought it and dropped a hot rails in the bridge and now have a very good guitar imo, for just over $300.