One of the points made by a Mexican official was that, simply, in the US of A they can't legally use certain sprays to varnish, but in Mexico they can. US pickups are hand-made (he said) but Mexican ones bulk produced; both work just as well.
Chinese Nikkors?
Yep, in Mexico there are fewer restrictions on how you can use nitrocellulose lacquer. It's toxic stuff, though modern formulations are less so than those of the mid 20th century. Ironically most Mexican-made Fenders have polyurethane finishes anyway (as have most US-made Fenders since the 1970s). In the guitar world
Nitro vs. Poly is one of those hot-button fanboy topics that causes people to discombobulate.
My own experience tells me it isn't important.
The thing about hand-made pickups is mostly marketing BS: only Fender's custom shop (the real high-end guitars) has individual winders hand-guiding pickup wire into a machine, and even then the machine is doing most of the work. Even Abby Ybarra used a winding machine back in the '60s. The art is in the guiding technique: controlling wire tension around the pickup's coil (or dual coils with hum-canceling designs). As a fellow guitarist I know says, pickups are magic and making them is wizardry.
Doesn't Nikon have a plant in Vietnam too?
I should photograph an Abby pickup!
-Dave-
