Squier Silver Series Japanese Strat, or early Mexican Fender Strat?

impmann

I wonder if it sat around in a warehouse unsold for a couple of years.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but left handed guitars are a bugger to sell. They do take longer to sell through - despite a lack of choice of colours and specs. When I was at Line6 we had nearly 200 left handed V500s on the shelf - FOUR years after they were manufactured. They were part of a batch made in 2003 - and it took ages to get down to that last 200. The decision was taken to blow them out at less than the cost price because they were taking up valuable warehouse space that could be used to house stuff that could sell.

Talking to other industry types it happens a lot - you have to build guitars in vast batches to get the price points. But in doing so you end up with a lot of 'dead money' while you try to find homes for them. Hence the prices are often higher because of the extra cost of storage (a warehouse racking space has a cost per day) as well
as the tooling costs.

its not fair on lefties... but equally it's not easy for the suppliers either! :-)