Buying from ishibashi

legologic

Whats the story buying from ishibashi? Is postage very expensive? how does the tax work?

Looking to buy a japanese Jazzmaster and their prices seem amazing!!!

Doctor J

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054881381

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=224519

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=198275

Johnny Storm

Fender Japan make excellent guitars and Ishibashi is easy to do business with. They are very good and polite at answering your email questions (remember the time difference though) My Strat has a truely beautiful finish with excellent attention to detail. You could not fault any part of it except that it badly needed a bit of Dunnes Stores finest tinfoil behind the scratchplate to stop the static crackling
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Karl H's expensive guit get lost in transit and Ishibashi sent him a replacement?

EDIT: the tax works out to be 25.5% of the invoiced cost (incl the shipping cost if its on the invoice). There is a small chance it might slip by customs untaxed but you couldn't count on it. Shipping and insurance is about 100 euros as far as I can remember. My strat arrived in less than a week.
Just my opinion but I think its worth asking them in advance to clarify what happens if the guitar is defective or get damaged in transit

legologic

good stuff... thanks for that. Just got me email back today. those prices :O

Karl Hungus

Johnny Storm wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Karl H's expensive guit get lost in transit and Ishibashi sent him a replacement?

It did indeed, and Noriko was practically no end of helpfull in sorting it out for me. Excellent communication, and service. I'm probably one of the few here who's had an experience of buying from them in person, and I have to say they are fantastic. Extremely helpfull staff aswell.

david

Do they have English speaking staff?

Karl Hungus

freakonaleashx wrote:

Do they have English speaking staff?

Sometimes, yes.

curtains

What are the prices like? Just any old example will do.

Doctor J

Have a look at the site, then go to www.xe.com and convert the yen value into euros.

conzy

How do the Japanese strats compare to the Mexican strats?

Are they better or worse?

A japanese Strat is ~€340

and a Mex strat is €379

Doctor J

Bear in mind you've got at least €100 shipping and about 25% import duty and tax to add on.

It's not worth it if you're buying cheap. If you spend about €500 on the instrument you'll get more than your monies worth. In my experience MIJ Fenders are at least as good as MIA Fenders. Having said that, we're talking like for like here, a €300 guitar isn't going to compare to a €1000 guitar.

conzy

Thanks, Ill stick to the low end stuff........:o

Johnny Storm

freakonaleashx wrote:

Do they have English speaking staff?

The ones who reply to emails have very good English.