Why is your guitar missing?

You know when you blow a dog whistle and the pooch tilts his head to the side and gives you that quizzical "what the hell?" look? That must have been what I looked like when someone asked me if I had found my guitar. I replied that I wasn't missing a guitar, or at least I thought I wasn't, and why did they think that?

"Because it said so on your blog. Peavey something-or-another MIA!"

Oooooohhhhhhhh......... NOW I see what you're saying. Let me 'splain. A brand of guitar can have many, many different instruments made by more than one factory. Some are in the US and others aren't. Their location of manufacture can be a big clue as to how skillfully the instrument *may* have been made and appropriately affect the value. Next to each project I put the make, model, year of manufacture (if known) as well as the manufacture location (if known). Sometimes it takes a bit of digging to find out where a guitar was made. Often those labels are removed if the country or origin isn't known for producing high-quality instruments or the instrument can just be old and the sticker gone (if there ever was one). Of the (currently) 9 instruments in my house only 3 of them have stickers declaring the country of manufacture. The rest have been identified by research.

The code is thus:

MIA- made in America, specifically the USA. I know some people will balk because Canada and Mexico are also part of (North) America but I'm an old grumpy man set in my ways.



MIC- made in Canada, eh? I don't have any MIC guitars, I just wanted to make the "eh" joke.

OR

MIC- made in China

MII- made in Indonesia

MIJ- made in Japan

MIK- made in Korea

MIM- made in Mexico

MIT- made in Taiwan


So if you see another MIA pop up, I haven't lost a guitar. If I do, it will be painfully obvious.