This thread intrigues me.
Back in '83 I was looking to buy my first 'good' guitar. My shortlist was a Yamaha SG1000S, Tokai ST50 and Squier Strat 57 Reissue.
I went with the Yamaha. Ironically, my Dad bought a Squier Strat - JV serial in fiesta red. At the time, the Squier and Tokai were within a couple of quid the same price and the Yamaha about ?100 dearer.
In the intervening years, I've kicked myself for not getting a Tokai, as they became hard to find and the new ones didn't seem to be up to the same standard as those early 80s ones.
About a year ago, I stumbled across mine on eBay. I wanted one with the interim block logo, as this seemed to be the most reliable way to date it - I remember these being the ones in stores in 83/4.
Mine has the same code on the neck and body, which if the info above is true, means it was made on my Dad's 40th. As I understand it, the number on the neck plate is largely irrelevant and is just a random number in the same style as the Fender era that the guitar is based on - a five digit '58' in my case.
The guitar has all the right parts and the soldering has never been disturbed.
Now, the bit that really intrigues me... regarding the number/originality, I'm inclined to say, "so what?".
The guitar is spectacularly good, but it's 'just' a Tokai. It hasn't appreciated in value (not even double what it was when it was new) anywhere near as much as the equivalent Squier Strat and considering mine and my Dad's were built in the same factory probably using the same parts, it shows you what difference a logo makes. Same goes for the Yamaha. Both the Yamaha and the Squier would fetch over double what the Tokai would...
I've no reason to suspect the Tokai is a fake. It would be extremely easy to fake, but why bother? These days, you can knock off a 100% accurate fake logo on yer laptop in minutes and it would be more profitable to sand the Tokai logo off and put a Squier, Fender or ESP logo on it.
Regarding the colour of the spaghetti logos, don't forget, these instruments are/were anally accurate copies of Fenders 'classic' era guitars, so the logos were coloured to replicate the colours of the Fender logo of the era the guitar represents.
Until Fender got shirty about it all, EVERYTHING on the early Tokai Fender 'replicas' was done the way Fender did it. When Fender changed anything, the Tokai copy had the same change - these were copies of vintage Fenders, not their current models of the time. For example, the Tele with the rosewood board... end on the rosewood is the thin curved laminate style. This indicates the neck is a replica of a post 62 Fender neck and so I would expect the stamped serial to have an 'L' prefix - pre62 rosewood was a slab board. 7 scratchplate screws on a Tele is a late 50s/60s style, early 50s Teles have a five screw plate. If you want to gauge the era your pre85 Fender copy Tokai is based on, compare the details with FENDER's info.