Many of these companies made various levels of quality, but for the japanese market they made some top quality stuff. Other names to look for: Burny, Orville by Gibson. GO FOR IT for 70 bucks you will not be disappointed! If it's a bolt-on leave it, but if it's a set-neck. They also had a giant Taiko drum that had to have been insanely expensive to make (they're made out of one solid piece of wood). It was my first time finding a real flea market style junk shop that didn't charge insane prices (there are a couple 'used musical instruments' places around here that charge about 90% of the NEW Japanese retail price for things, no matter the condition). They had a few more acoustic guitars I wanted to look at, anyway. I don't remember seeing anything that said Tokai, but I'll be sure to go back and check. I sure wish I knew more about ecclectic foreign guitars.

Man, I really need to get back there and check the electrics! I saw that most of them were really cheap Fernandes junk (it's basically the Squier of Japan) and moved on the acoustics, but I do remember seeing a couple with Japanese names, and one that was a 'Greco' (don't know if that's Japanese or not). a whole shipment got their headstocks cut off at customs as forgeries!īrad347 wrote:Look at the labels and if any are made by Tokai/Gakki BUY THEM. I think Fender probably got the idea from them. Fender was making shitty guitars at that point and there were no re-issues, so Tokai made their own reissues. These guitars were not designed to be cheap knock-offs. These ST-80s are getting well over $1000 on ebay now. Don't want to spread the word around but it's not really my little secret anymore. I'd put these higher end (and even lower end!) tokai guitars against any post-1970 Fender (and I own a pre-CBS jazzmaster).

a headstock that you would swear says 'fender' from more than 2 feet away cloth-insulated wire in the control cavity Tokai 'E' pickups (which are just re-labeled Dimarzio VS-1s from the 70s! Great pickups!) nitrocellulose finish (fender hasn't even done this since '68) I have a 1979 tokai ST-80 springysound 'str*t' and it is AWESOME.Įxact replica of a 54 strat with the following features: Look at the labels and if any are made by Tokai/Gakki BUY THEM.

Burny guitar serial number fg