I took a punt on eBay last week and ended up with this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201829025650
As I suspected, it is a pretty decent guitar, albeit absolutely filthy! But I'm curious as to whether there is any way of verifying that the body comes from a Tokai. The neck is Warmoth, very flat fingerboard, jumbo frets, Sperzel locking tuners. The only writing in the neck pocket of the guitar itself is the letter 'Y'. Trem cavity has been routed for a battery at some point.
The control cavity has been shielded -- very neatly -- with copper foil, which I don't want to disturb. I don't think the pickups are original, and pretty sure they are not Tokai as they have bar magnets on the back. There are no markings on the saddles. The numbers on the neckplate read 203899.
Short of stripping out all the foil, is there anything I could inspect that would suggest Tokai-ness or lack thereof?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201829025650
As I suspected, it is a pretty decent guitar, albeit absolutely filthy! But I'm curious as to whether there is any way of verifying that the body comes from a Tokai. The neck is Warmoth, very flat fingerboard, jumbo frets, Sperzel locking tuners. The only writing in the neck pocket of the guitar itself is the letter 'Y'. Trem cavity has been routed for a battery at some point.
The control cavity has been shielded -- very neatly -- with copper foil, which I don't want to disturb. I don't think the pickups are original, and pretty sure they are not Tokai as they have bar magnets on the back. There are no markings on the saddles. The numbers on the neckplate read 203899.
Short of stripping out all the foil, is there anything I could inspect that would suggest Tokai-ness or lack thereof?