NGD: tokai HLS420 ordered through Musicland/Tenso

Hi guys!

My first post here but I've been browsing the forum for a long time gathering useful info. First of all thanks to all of you who make this forum an unvaluable source of knowledge about MIJ guitars. Without your insights I would never got to know Tokai guitars and which model to buy.

Since I have not seen any post about Tenso.com I wanted to give some feedback about their service. For those who don't know about it, Tenso provides a resending service from Japan to anywhere in the world. You just need to register for free in order to get a japanese mail adress (at the Tenso warehouse), then you can buy from any Japonese website that only send inland using this adress. Tenso then send your package to your home using EMS.

A while ago I stomped into this guitar while checking on Digimart:

http://www.musicland.co.jp/shop/itemdetail/store/47782/50023/

I had been looking for a while for a high-end Tokai LS with solid flamed top and was saving for a LS250 but when I saw the discounted price of this one I could not resist.

I bought it from musicland's website using my Tenso adress. Here I must admit that I was helped by a Japanese colleague who called musicland to give my credit card number over the phone as it did not take it online (seems like even swiss credit cards are not reliable nowadays...). Next day, they sent the guitar to my Tenso adress where it came 2 days later. It took then 3 days for Tenso to do the paperwork for the custom and another 4 days for EMS to bring it to Switzerland.

For the costs:
Guitar: 268 000 yen
Shipping to Tenso: 1260 yen
Shipping to Switzerland (including insurance): 14900 yen
Tenso handling fee: 1980 yen

Switzerland and Japan are in a free trade agreement so no import fees but 8% Swiss VAT to pay (276 CHF)

Altogether a serious amount of money, but the guitar is worth any penny, cents, rappen or whatever you want. Superb construction and finish, very very nice flamed top and reasonable weight (4.3 kg). Sound is exactly what I wanted, it's hard for me to compare to other les pauls as I have owned so far only one guitar, an MIM strat and have tried only a couple of les paul (epiphone/gibson) briefly. We're still in the process of getting to know each other but I already love its neck profile and above all its sound and playability. Since it was mentioned on several posts I have to say that inlay work is not perfect as some filler can be seen around some inlays. I does not bother me at all since it's hardly visible and does not affect its sound in any way but one expects perfections for a top of line model.

Here's some pics:

http://s1180.photobucket.com/albums/x410/oligoplayer/?action=view&current=IMG_6829.jpg

http://s1180.photobucket.com/albums/x410/oligoplayer/?action=view&current=IMG_6835.jpg

http://s1180.photobucket.com/albums/x410/oligoplayer/?action=view&current=IMG_6838.jpg

http://s1180.photobucket.com/albums/x410/oligoplayer/?action=view&current=IMG_6839.jpg

http://s1180.photobucket.com/albums/x410/oligoplayer/?action=view&current=IMG_6837.jpg

Amazing guitar!...all the best with it.

Btw, fretwork and inlays are two completely different things...the Tokai fretwork and necks are as good as it gets, they can't be done any better by any guitar company even at 3 times the price.
Be careful, if you say "bad fretwork" on the internet every guitarist and his grandmother will take it as fact.

Holy Toledo - go straight in at the top man!



I think it's a good way to go actually; going for a top level new guitar can certainly work out better than chasing auctions for vintage ones.
Glad to hear that the neck and weight is to your liking, that's a major unknown out of the way, and there are plenty of adjustments/mods
that you can do over time to get it totally how you like it.

Is that the guitar's personal quilt and pillow in the photos?! :lol:

And thanks for the info about Tenso.

(Hope it's ok for me to link one of your pics in, if not I'll edit it out)

@ Diamond: oops! Sorry you're perfectly right that's not what I meant yesterday when I typed my post. Neck and Fretwork are actually perfect + absolutely no set up or trussrod adjustment needed, guitar was ready to play out of the box. Well, after tuning it
It's now corrected in original post

@JVsearch: I must say I was reluctant buying such an expensive guitar without having the opportunity to actually try it + risks of damage during transport. But I was lucky on that one!
And yes the guitar is getting it's on bed room with king size bed and breakfast brought every morning

oligoplayer said:

@ Diamond: oops! Sorry you're perfectly right that's not what I meant yesterday when I typed my post. Neck and Fretwork are actually perfect + absolutely no set up or trussrod adjustment needed, guitar was ready to play out of the box. Well, after tuning it
It's now corrected in original post

@JVsearch: I must say I was reluctant buying such an expensive guitar without having the opportunity to actually try it + risks of damage during transport. But I was lucky on that one!
And yes the guitar is getting it's on bed room with king size bed and breakfast brought every morning

Click to expand...

I concede, you do need to tune them before you can play them, but that's only because they're detuned before shipping.

It's truly a beautiful guitar, a keeper for life.
If you can afford high end models like that I say go for it, it's unlikely you'll ever play a better Les Paul, at any price.

Beauty!!!!