IYV IJG-200 TSB Strat Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Tobacco Sunburst

For a beginner? I've been playing for over 60 years. Gibsons. Fenders. All sorts of fine instruments. But then I discovered IYV -- made in (of all places) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Inexpensive. And.... Good. Really good. (This is my third) Good in what way? Every way, really. Well designed, along familiar lines but with their own little twists. (Here a "Jazzmaster" in general type, but semi-hollow bodied, and with pickups voiced much as classic P90s. Built well. With, here, none of the bug-a-boos that typcially are part of the low end guitar scenario. Her fret ends are smooth. Her finish nearly flawless. Even her wood grain more than passing fair. And her hardware is well chosen and nicely built. (A roller bridge. Smooth, adjustable, tuners. All, if not quite total "first class" pretty dang close. Even set-up was passing fair on delivery. And strings, once lowered to my own preference, revealed no fret buzz whatever. All of that is sayng a lot. But it is all true. And for me that is three times in a row. Three IYVs. All now among my most often played guitars.

This guitar is quite nice, it looks and almost plays like a Jazzmaster... BUT... you need to be aware of the work that you need to put in to make it fully playable... While the price would suggest that you could get this for a beginner... "as is" it would deter a new player, here is why and what I had to do: Action - Came in quite high which nakes the guitar hard to play. I had to Shim the neck in order to lower it. Easy fix with some folder pieces of paper. Frets - Slight fret sprout on both the low and high sides of the neck feel rough on the hand, non-polished frets feel very gritty while trying to bend. I polished the frets while I had the neck off the body for the shim, and filed the sides of the neck to mostly smooth out the sprout... easy, but just takes time/patience. It also smoothed out the fingerboard edges. Dry Fingerboard - Looked like the fingerboard was never treated, so it looked "pale" and gritty while fretting. I rubbed some Boiled Linseed Oil on it and it came out looking way nicer and now feels smooth. Tun-o-matic style bridge was not properly secured (loose screws), tightened (using suplpied tools) and checked the intonation, all OK. There were some buffing compound left over, easy to clean up, the upper circuitry pots are not smooth the whole travel, which I have not addressed yet, need to take the pickguard off for that... but they are in working order, not scratchiness. The trem works, thought the bar is not as tight as it could be, so there is some wiggle in it, but not enough to impair usage. I threw in a fresh set of strings (it comes with 9's) and now it plays really nice... I give 4 stars, because without work, it is not really playable, once all those easy fixes are in is a much nicer and pleasant playing experience... the key is, having the time/patience/knowledge to make the necessary adjustments... which, BTW, you also have to do to some of the big brands... just to a lesser degree... After all that... I am quite happy with this guitar, it is my 2nd IYV... so I knew what I was getting into... If you buy it and even adding a pro setup at your local guitar shop, you may still come out with a nice guitar and a not high at all cost... my 2 cents... I was too excited to start working on it, I forgot to take before and after pics...

First of all the 5 stars are for the value of this guitar, it exceeds the cost. That being said I believe IYV are hit and miss, I got a super nice guitar that was extremely poorly packaged, with minimal Styrofoam strips and a wedge shaped cardboard box (which usually would be contained inside another rectangular box). the guitar was in the usual foam type bag. Luckily the only damage was the plastic pickup selector switch cap was broken, there was a very slight impression on the very top of the headstock about 1/8" long and the width of a fingernail so shallow I could barely feel it. The rest of the guitar is in excellent condition, the finish is very nice, even the edges of the sound hole are finished nicely which was a surprise. The pickguard looks very nice, all the screws are there and snugged up without any being loose or over tightened. The neck is decent, minimal satin finish which makes playing easier than with a thick urethane. Frets are not bad at all, I will touch up the fret ends but it's not bad to play as is. The nut is cut properly and appears to be bone, but I could be wrong, it's decent regardless and doesn't need any attention. Action is just a little high for my liking and neck relief is a bit more than needed but the guitar is very playable out of the box, so if you don't do a set-up you wouldn't be unhappy with the way it plays. All the switches and knobs work smoothly and the pots are fairly linear across their range. The pickups are really good sounding, I usually upgrade the pickups but that won't be needed. The tailpiece and bridge are decent, function properly and look nice, no need to upgrade. The tuners are the weak point, even though they are holding tune they are inconsistent, some feel sloppy with lots of play and some are not too bad. I will upgrade the tuners at some point but they are working well enough to get the guitar in tune for now. Overall the guitar I received is excellent and an extremely good value for the money, I'm very happy with the one I got and feel like I won the lottery on this one.