This is the Squier I'd buy had I not just bought one

It's taken a long time for Squier to get the big headstock correct on a Stratocaster, but they finally did.

Above is the newly released Squier Affinity Stratocaster.

This guitar has pretty much always had the big headstock on it, but the reason I've never bought one is because the logo treatment was terrible. That's finally been fixed.

With the newer Classic Vibe, the smaller traditional headstock logo treatment is spot-on correct. And now Affinity joins the fray with a proper logo for the big headstock.

Do headstock fonts truly matter?

Absolutely.

For a lot of players, the way the headstock looks can mean the decision between buying the guitar or not.

The redesign of the Squier logo with the Q being different, along with that oh-so desirable italicized STRATOCASTER makes the Affinity Strat look so much better.

It does make sense that the bigger headstock is purposely put on a lower priced model, since it's well known that the smaller headstock has always been the better seller where Stratocaster guitars are concerned.

The last time Squier did this was with a Vintage Modified series Stratocaster. I've owned two of them. The STRATOCASTER font on the headstock however was wrong. While that wasn't the reason I parted with the guitars, I do admit that it did bother me.

However, the refreshed Affinity gets it right. The headstock shape and logos are finally correct. Good showing on Squier for the new Affinity model.

Published 2021 Sep 28