How to tell a fake tokai

[Anonymous]

haha, well the Tele weighs a tonne, so I'm guessing its not chipboard

Oh no, chipboard is pretty heavy.

70s Fenders are part of the reason Tokai existed in the way it did from '79 onwards!

It won't be chipboard Alan, a 70s Tele is probably some very heavy ash, & probably not a wonderful guitar. Give me an 80s Tokai Strat or Tele over a 70s Fender any day of the week, no contest. Why anybody buys 70s Fenders is quite beyond me.

Having said that about chipboard, one of the heaviest Strats I've had was an early 90s MIJ Squier - and that was plywood! :-?

 

[Anonymous]

You know what i mean, people with forums talk about stuff they've done. Sorry for expecting it to be normal...

Are you suggesting that we are normal? Or not?

 

[leadguitar_323]

He means that he thought this would be another mind numbing harmony central type forum full of owners that know sweet FA about what they are playing.

Mick

 

[chris945]

Well Mick is right in a way... At First glance i did yes. but its alll better than that

Okay... enough about the 70's fender.. I'm finding out when its from... i think 70's fenders are rubbish... but this isn't so maybe its 80's... And its definately Ash or something like that, because the finish has worn down and chipped in a few places and we can see the wood... looks good

Chris

 

[Si Pie]

You should have your beef with the seller and not the manufacturer in my opinion. I'd be annoyed if I'd paid ?400 for a chinese model, you could have paid ?100 less than that for a new one with a case chucked in.

It certainly doesn't look fake. Is it really so bad to play? I'd contact the seller if it was sold to you as a japanese model, but I think you'll be out of luck unfortunately.

 

[JVsearch]

haha, well the Tele weighs a tonne, so I'm guessing its not chipboard

Oh no, chipboard is pretty heavy.

70s Fenders are part of the reason Tokai existed in the way it did from '79 onwards!

It won't be chipboard Alan, a 70s Tele is probably some very heavy ash, & probably not a wonderful guitar. Give me an 80s Tokai Strat or Tele over a 70s Fender any day of the week, no contest. Why anybody buys 70s Fenders is quite beyond me.

I think you mean - why anybody buys 70's Fenders at today's very inflated prices is beyond you? Be honest though, some (maybe quite a few) of them are still good?

Speaking for myself, I wont buy a 3-bolt Fender, end of story, because I can buy Tokai, Greco, Bacchus for less, and not 3 bolt. However, I would buy a Tokai Silver Star because they're only $400, and that's a fair price for the cheapened original design. Yeah I'm being an idiot, but why would you want to use 3 screws when you can use 4, for the most critical join on the design?

 

[chris945]

Speaking for myself, I wont buy a 3-bolt Fender, end of story

Its 80's then, I totally forgot about the 3 bolt thing in the 70s, which yes... is CRAP. but no he didnt pay loads to have an original, he bought it brand new in '82

It was not sold to me as japanese... As i have said, he didnt have much about the guitar in his auction info, I will find the link later and you can all have a look, but it was sort of an impulse buy... because it was buy it now, and came with recording software... so i was like... why not, its reasonably cheap... and cheaply made...

What i dont understand is how "vintage" can make a guitar that is made of mahogany, deep set mahogany neck... grover tuners... reasonable pickups... and sell it for like ?250 ish... but tokai have to make theres out of agathis and a 2-piece @) Maple neck... and sell it for 350+...

It doesn't make sense.

 

[Ozeshin]

With the MiJ models you're pretty safe to order sight unseen and still get a brilliant guitar..
With the MiC models it's a gamble for sure...I have a MiC SG that I bought off ebay sight unseen...luckily I got it and the cosmetic flaws were an acceptable minimum and it's very playable...mostly due in part to Peter's brilliant setup.

 

[Grievergirl]

I know not a lot about Tokais, I'm still trying to figure out what my own is, but as far as I am aware from the research I've done so far on the tokai registry, the serial number is meant to be 7 digits long. I know some models may have a letter at the start. The 20 at the start means it was supposedly made in 1982, but for this to be the case it would need to be in the 7 digit format.

 

[leadguitar_323]

You need to create a photobucket account and then copy and paste the "IMG" code into the thread, without pictures you won't get much help..

Mick