Fender soon added a less expensive export Squier series based on the Fender Japan 19 series in July/August 1982, which had a large Fender logo with a smaller Squier logo and had a zinc rather than a steel tremolo block and again the stratocasters had Fender USA pickups installed.The Squier series were also made available for the Japanese market in October 1982, which incorporated small changes compared to the export Squier series.Yamano Gakki was known for once being part of Epiphone Japan.Kanda Shokai owned the Greco brand name and one of the conditions of the Fender Japan agreement was that Kanda Shokai cease production of its own Greco Fender copies.Jerome Bonaparte Squier, a young English immigrant who arrived in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the latter part of the 19th century, was a farmer and shoemaker who had learned the fine European art of violin making. Victor Squier started making his own hand-wound violin strings, and the business grew so quickly that he and his employees improvised a dramatic production increase by converting a treadle sewing machine into a string winder capable of producing 1,000 uniformly high-quality strings per day.He moved to Boston in 1881, where he built and repaired violins with his son, Victor Carroll Squier. Squier violin strings, banjo strings and guitar strings became well known nationwide and were especially popular among students because of their reasonable price. Squier Company in early 1965, shortly before Fender itself was acquired by CBS in May of the same year.To this day, their violins are noted for their exceptional varnishes, and they command high prices as fine examples of early U. In the 1930s, Squier began making strings for the era's new electric instruments; the company also sold pianos, radios and phonograph records until divesting itself of all string-related products in 1961. Squier Company became an official original equipment manufacturer for Fender in 1963. By the mid-1970s, the Squier name was retired as the strings had taken the Fender name.

Further negotiations between Fender and Japanese guitar factories took place.

The large Fender logo of the export Squier series was soon changed to a large Squier logo.

The first Fender Japan guitars are known as the JV Fenders and JV Squiers, with JV standing for "Japanese Vintage" to reflect the guitars were made from the original blueprints of the vintage US guitars, were made by the Fuji Gen Gakki factory in Japan, using technical support from Fender.

In 1996, Squier began to manufacture the Vista Series, which saw them introducing their own unique guitar designs independent from the Fender mother company for the first time.

Made in the same factory as the Japanese Fenders of the era, they were known as high quality guitars.