1978 Greco TD500 - possible subcontractor-made neck?

[Voidoid56]

Ok, so Grecos are infuriatingly messy, sketchy and inconsistent in terms of internal production markings to begin with, so I wasn't terribly surprised when a neck-heel stamp I'd never seen before turned up in a Sept 1978 (with 1979 specs, an unusually early transitional model) TD500 Tele Deluxe copy.

The stamp reads "KSC-6DX" inscribed in a rectangle, and doesn't really resemble any other Greco production markings I've seen so far in format or content. A quick google search revealed two more guitars with the same stamp, both 1978 SE600 Strat copies, a model the TD500 shared a neck with, including the exact same "Sparkle Sound" moniker on the headstock. I'll try to go a bit deeper, but three instances says that's it's not a one-off thing.

So what could it stand for? Speculation time:

Let's assume that it's made by an external subcontractor, not Fujigen themselves. If so, "KS" could be Kanda Shokai, owners of the Greco brand. The "C", I've no idea. "6DX"? 60k level Strat and Tele Deluxe?
I've no idea if it the true meaning is even knowable by now, but this interpretation sort of works.

So, has anyone seen a similar stamp? And if it's made by a subcontractor, which one could it be? There seems to be word-on-the-street type rumours that Atalansia made necks for other manufacturers? Anyone got anything tangible on that?



My TD500



1978 SE600N 1978 SE600S

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Sorry, no idea on the stamps, just the observation that a single character (T, N, Z, Y) on always the same position (left corner of the heel) is something to ponder about. I think I repeatedly saw that being attributed to Fujigen.

From Atlansia:

ATLANSIA is an ORIGINAL GUITAR MAKER, but we also accept OEM products. Up until now, we have been contracted to produce GUITARs and wooden products for various brands.

 

[Voidoid56]

Yeah, true, you often see either a T or (more commonly, I think?) a roman I or 1 (a line with serifs, basically) in Fujigen-made Grecos. The position is always approximatly like this, quite carefully placed very close to a corner or the rear edge of the neck heel. This (to me, at least) sort of suggests that it might indicate something directly relevant to the assembly procedure. Lining up something with something? I mean, if it was just carrying some sort of information down the production line, wouldn't it be more expedient to just slap it anywhere on the neck heel?
If so, it could well have been applied after the neck was delivered from whomever manufactured it, but before assembly.

Well, I guess the only way we'll ever know is if a similar marking turns up in a guitar with a more identifiable background.

It would be interesting to attempt to chart internal production markings in Greco Fender copies, but I'm not sure much in the way of consistency would become apparent. It's strange really, Fujigen was not a small workshop, you'd think they's need a system to track production, at least for QA purposes. It's also makes you wonder why Tokai had this very consistent system in place? Maybe there was a stronger local manfacturing industry tradition in Hamamatsu (Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda's original site etc) than in the traditional woodworking and joinery capital of Matsumoto?

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

One reason for the position could be that other positions, f.e. the center was reserved e.g. for other mysterious stamps like "KSC-6DX". Recurring markings like that are puzzling me since I started digging into what I call "crap guitar archeology", for example, there are these mysterious "Y in a circle" stamps on early export plywood planks, but I digress..

The problem is that in order to link them to something you need to have something to link them to, for example if they stand e.g. for a specific factory, you need to know what guitars were made in which factory and so on. Still digressing tho...

What's catching my eye is 1. that this fat "KSC..." stamp doesn't look like something they made for 3 guitars, IOW there should be more of them. 2. It doesn't follow their scheme but many (allegedly) Fujigen made Fenders have similar structured codes like "(K)ST54-EX", TLC-62b" or "CST-50M", with the entire crowd of Fender MIJ neck stamp connoisseurs being really close to re-opening Bletchley Park in order to decrypt the mysteries behind them.