The Smoking Gun...

[Sigmania]

I just stumbled across a video that shows Polaroids from 1977 (?) of the actual original guitars that were used as templates apparently for Tokais including a 1958 Les Paul and a 1957ish MK Strat.

Wow.....

 

[Sigmania]

 

[Sigmania]

Possible source of the photos?

Masahiro Matsui



And is this him at a younger age??

 

[Sigmania]

Older factory pics.

 

[ATO]

Wow! There's a few pics of 6798 on Pinterest. Mad to think how many copies that guitar spawned.

 

[Sigmania]

bluejeannot shared a story that he had heard that the source of these originals was Rick Nielsen, the lead guitarist from Cheap Trick. Would be interesting to see if he ever owned that guitar.

Rick Nielsen and Tokai

And

Source of Specs For Vintage Fender Strats?

 

[Sigmania]

Wow! There's a few pics of 6798 on Pinterest. Mad to think how many copies that guitar spawned.

 

[Sigmania]

I tried to square up some of these and correct the distortions in the angles.

 

[Sigmania]

Sure wish I knew if the 77 on the edges of these Polaroids refers to the year or if that is unrelated.

 

[Sigmania]

You combine these physical examples with the early use of CNC and you have the Tokai formula.

I suspect CNC was used at Tokai way earlier than most people think. Possibly from 1977?

CNC At Tokai?

 

[Sigmania]

More of the story...

 

[Sigmania]

I knew they had to have more than they were letting on.

I had been told by someone on here that the old records had been thrown away... Not so. Thank goodness.

Hopefully more will be shared in the times ahead.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Thanks for being quicker in squeezing every bit of information out of that video!

 

[Sigmania]

Thanks for being quicker in squeezing every bit of information out of that video!

Had you already seen that? I just ran across it today. Let me know if you posted about it already ion here. I didn't see it if you did.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

No I saw the video after waking up shortly after you posted it (great find!), felt a bit grumpy about the super redundant "lawsuit" explanation ending with the usual "settled out of court" simplification and the shortness and teaser character of the video.

Then I thought I'd want to put the video in full screen and extract some of the images but decided to google "8 6798" first because just teasing and not telling what the story is behind that guitar was the last thing in that video that made me grumpy and the next thing I know is that you already had it all nicely put together and distributed relevant stuff to the right threads, which made me feel much less grumpy this morning.

 

[Sigmania]

ATO spotted the '58 Les Paul mentioned on Pinterest. I was just posting what he had found.

And I felt the same about the lawsuit stuff, but stuck it out.

And there were absolutely lawsuits involving Tokai. I thought about letting him know, but I get tired of trying to correct the internet. LOL

 

[ATO]

There's not much about on 8 6798, however it looks to have been refinished by a bavarian luthier called Florian Jaeger 5-6 years ago, apparently it was in rough condition. A 58 should be a cherry burst. Still looks cherry in the tokai pics.

https://www.jaegerguitars.com/florian-his-workshop.html
I've emailed him, see if he knows anything about it. It's probably in Bonamassa's bathroom.

 

[ATO]

Wild goose chase! The serial of the Les Paul above is 8 8798, teach me to read posts with out my specs on. Oh well, I've had a nice chat with Florian about 58 bursts

 

[Jlee]

So cool! What a fantastic looking burst!

 

[chuckyz2]