Tokai ES100 - price and year?

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whatiship

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Hi! My first post here and I hope you guys can help me! A friend of me has this Tokai ES100 that he wants to sell and I gotta say, it's a sick guitar. I'm not a Tokai expert though and thought that I could get some help over here. The previous owner said it was from 80-81 and was made in Japan but I would like to be sure myself. The serial nr is 1011593 and it has a "100" sticker on the back of the headstock, no "made in Japan" sticker or stamp. How do I know if that's correct or not?

Second question, what's a reasonable price for a guitar like this? I've found some used ES100 on reverb/eBay at 1200-1400 dollars?
 
Sounds all good, must be an 81 tokai es 100.
Pull the neck humbucker, the model number and color should be in the pickup cavity.
Prica is hard to say without pictures.
From my experience the cherry's and naturals go for more then the sunbursts.
 
whatiship said:
Hi! My first post here and I hope you guys can help me! A friend of me has this Tokai ES100 that he wants to sell and I gotta say, it's a sick guitar. I'm not a Tokai expert though and thought that I could get some help over here. The previous owner said it was from 80-81 and was made in Japan but I would like to be sure myself. The serial nr is 1011593 and it has a "100" sticker on the back of the headstock, no "made in Japan" sticker or stamp. How do I know if that's correct or not?

Second question, what's a reasonable price for a guitar like this? I've found some used ES100 on reverb/eBay at 1200-1400 dollars?

The label on the inside of the body will indicate Hamamatsu Japan. It'll also tell if it's an ES100R(ock) or ES100J(azz) - difference being that the rock version will have slightly hotter pickups. $1200 - $1400 is about right but I've seen them going for higher than that. Any pics of yours?
 
duff said:
Sounds all good, must be an 81 tokai es 100.
Pull the neck humbucker, the model number and color should be in the pickup cavity.
Prica is hard to say without pictures.
From my experience the cherry's and naturals go for more then the sunbursts.
Thanks for your reply! Yeah, I searched for serial info and realized that it's made in 81. The condition is great, a few dings but nothing major. It's cherry red, I will check under the neck PU. I will to try post a couple of pics as soon as I can. It could be an original case, but I can't find a Tokai logo anywhere. It's a black case and it's purple inside.
 
marcusnieman said:
whatiship said:
Hi! My first post here and I hope you guys can help me! A friend of me has this Tokai ES100 that he wants to sell and I gotta say, it's a sick guitar. I'm not a Tokai expert though and thought that I could get some help over here. The previous owner said it was from 80-81 and was made in Japan but I would like to be sure myself. The serial nr is 1011593 and it has a "100" sticker on the back of the headstock, no "made in Japan" sticker or stamp. How do I know if that's correct or not?

Second question, what's a reasonable price for a guitar like this? I've found some used ES100 on reverb/eBay at 1200-1400 dollars?

The label on the inside of the body will indicate Hamamatsu Japan. It'll also tell if it's an ES100R(ock) or ES100J(azz) - difference being that the rock version will have slightly hotter pickups. $1200 - $1400 is about right but I've seen them going for higher than that. Any pics of yours?
I checked under pickup and it says 100TR, I guess the R stand for rock. But how about the T?
 
tr means it's a red one, the r means red (forgot what the t stands for, probably something like traditional red..) normally there should be a red label inside the guitar (if you look trough the f-hole) that would either say es100J or es100R, but i've seen a few and own one where the label is gone missing(they didnt use the best glue for the label :D ) there isnt a big difference between r's and j's anyway... imo.
 
duff said:
tr means it's a red one, the r means red (forgot what the t stands for, probably something like traditional red..) normally there should be a red label inside the guitar (if you look trough the f-hole) that would either say es100J or es100R, but i've seen a few and own one where the label is gone missing(they didnt use the best glue for the label :D ) there isnt a big difference between r's and j's anyway... imo.

Here's mine:



 
marcusnieman said:
duff said:
tr means it's a red one, the r means red (forgot what the t stands for, probably something like traditional red..) normally there should be a red label inside the guitar (if you look trough the f-hole) that would either say es100J or es100R, but i've seen a few and own one where the label is gone missing(they didnt use the best glue for the label :D ) there isnt a big difference between r's and j's anyway... imo.

Here's mine:



Thanks for the pics! I'll post some pics as fast as I can, my headstock looks like yours but mine is missing the sticker inside the body.
 

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