Squier

The V.C. Squier Company started out making violin, banjo and guitar strings in Battle Creek, Michigan, back in 1890, decades before it had anything to do with electric guitars. Fender bought the company in 1965 and eventually wound down its original string business, then revived the Squier name in 1982 as a budget guitar line built to compete with the wave of cheap Japanese Stratocaster copies flooding the market at the time. It now covers lower-priced versions of most Fender shapes, built across Indonesia, China, Korea and Japan, and remains the guitar most first-time buyers are pointed toward. We cover it constantly in beginner guides and budget-versus-original comparisons. Here's everything we've covered.