OffsetGuitars.com

Embenny wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 30, 2023 1:31 pm

Meriphew wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 30, 2023 12:29 pm

I'm surprised that dealers haven't done a recent run of Thin Skin Jaguars.

Thin Skin runs were commissioned. Wildwood had to place the order in sufficient quality to get Fender to make them. If Wildwood had the capital and the demand, they'd be doing it now. Clearly one, the other, or both are missing.

If you want a $2500 Jaguar in a cool colour, there are lots of ways to get one.

Fenders the problem here.
One the TS retailers had their orders canceled in 2022 and fender told them that they would be accepting anymore orders (not even orders for ts teles and strats!)
Unclear if this is a forever thing, retailer said they’d keep trying and should fender revive them, theyd do more runs, but who knows.

Would not suprise me if 2022 were the last thinskins.
Why sell them as a thin skin when they can call them a “custom shop” and pull twice the profit..

sugarandopium wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:20 pm

Would not suprise me if 2022 were the last thinskins.
Why sell them as a thin skin when they can call them a “custom shop” and pull twice the profit..

And just for the record …. I mean this referring to fender selling as a CS for max profit.
Not wildwood, Dave’s and the other place that used to do the runs.

sugarandopium wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 30, 2024 2:20 pm

Would not suprise me if 2022 were the last thinskins.
Why sell them as a thin skin when they can call them a “custom shop” and pull twice the profit..

Total speculation here, but it might be because Fender has made quite significant advances in finishing their guitars since then. Enough that marketing a guitar as having a special “Thin Skin” finish no longer means anything.

I say this because I would seriously nerd out on this shit in the past (because it was my job). And I can say that a modern nitro finish the past few years has been as “thin” or most of the time MUCH thinner than the finishes ever were on the original first AV “Thin Skin” guitars.

For example, if you were to take a Johnny Marr Jag, bust a chip of finish off of it, and use calipers to measure the thickness, you would find it about half the thickness of any finish I have on any original “Thin Skin” I own. And I have an AV65 JM that is absolutely insane thin.


Again, that run was meant to sort of address (or capitalize on) an issue that was a common complaint in the late 90s and early 2000s (stupidly thick finishes). An American Vintage II Strat off the shelf in 2024 easily has as thin or thinner finish than those original Thin Skin run did. Seriously.

That may be part of it yeah.


I also think that during the boom Fender didn't want to make the production line commitment for smaller runs. I think that they may start to do this as the market softens.

Pretty sure that Daves and Wildwood would sign up for smaller runs if they can.