'Profile' Les Paul copy (possibly 70s or 80s?)

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danmc_27

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I picked up this Les Paul copy in a trade recently. It's branded 'Profile' and is obviously an older Japanese LP copy but while attempting to research it online, I found I could find almost no information on the guitar. There are a few Strat copies out there and there seems to be a (unconfirmed) story floating around that the 'Profile' guitars may have been made when a guitar shop took some American guitars over to Japan in order to have them make copies of them. Other than that there is next to no info about them and nothing I can really find at all on the Les Paul except what appears to be a photo of one other one in white. I thought I would post it on here in the hopes that someone may be able to help me work out when and in which factory this guitar may have been made and also to document and just show off what I think is really a very nice and seemingly quite rare early Japanese Les Paul copy

Here it is:

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Headstock showing silk-screened 'Profile' logo, inlay is a little bit wonky looking but I like it and it looks like it may actually be real mother of pearl(?) from the colour, unlike the neck inlays. Truss-rod cover is a squared bell shape:

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Truss rod:

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Poker chip; it's a bit wonky looking and seems to be glued down, don't know whether this is original or not. Sadly the guitar was missing one strap button when I got it so I've replaced them with Gotoh oversize buttons

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The original strap button:

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Heel joint showing 7-ply body binding. Can's see any cracks around the joint thankfully, even though the guitar has had at least one bad drop in it's lifetime (see below). She's a hefty beast and feels solid enough that you could strap it on and run through a brick wall :p

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Neck has a volute, it's not quite the giant Kalamazoo volute of the late 70s but not the smallest I've seen either, a nice medium I guess The original nut was bone but it looked like someone had hacked at it with something and a couple of strings were buzzing on the first few frets so had to replace that. The neck is chunky and of the 'baseball bat' variety but is very comfortable for me and my hands aren't overly large. I'm no expert on Gibson type neck profiles but I'd say it is probably closest to an R7 type neck than anything earlier but I'd say it's certainly chunkier than R8/R9?R0 or later style in terms of profile:

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Back of the headstock showing tuners with large 'key-stone' shaped buttons. They have no branding on them sadly:

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One of the tuners:

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When I got the guitar, someone had obviously lost the original bracket and unfortunately screwed the pickguard directly to the body:

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Output jack and the damage from the guitar obviously having been dropped at some point. I've covered it up with a bit of black nitrocellulose, I'll polish it up to look a bit nicer eventually:

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The neck, showing some of the fretboard wear and inlays. Don't know whether this is just a very dark rosewood or is it actually ebony?

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Fretboard radius is 10 inches, so a bit more rounded than a standard LP. Bit of a weird mix of specs on the neck overall with a long neck tenon and a 70s style volute along with the more rounded 'board

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Bridge and tail-piece; Bridge is mounted directly into the guitar body in genuine 'ABR-1" style. Bridge is marked 'L S Bridge', tail piece is marked LP-S and both are stamped 'made in Japan'

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Pickups are Gotohs and were once gold though that has long worn off on the front. They're a touch dark for my personal taste and quite hot at over 10k ohms each:

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Neck pickup cavity showing what appears to be a long neck tenon. You can just about make out the join lines between what appears to be a "proper" maple top and mahogany back construction:

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Bridge pickup cavity shows join between top and body more clearly. I can see what are possibly join lines if I get the light to hit the guitar just right, bit hard to photograph. One dead centre in the top and on the back it looks offset with the larger piece on the bass side, extending to include the entire neck heel joint. Again I'm no expert here and it's hard to tell with the finish but it looks like maybe the guitar was constructed with two piece body and top

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Control cavities; Think that the selector switch and capacitors as well as possibly the pots have been replaced although there was still quite a bit of original sawdust in there when I first opened her up.
Switch looks fairly new and has brown 4-core shielded wiring leading to it, unlike the grey wire for the pickups. Pots are branded 'Noble' and look to be older but I can find no date codes on them.
Note the "modern" style wiring with the capacitors connecting from the outer lug of the volume pot to the wiper of the tone pot that it had when I got it. Switched that over to "50s style" wiring now (cap from the wiper of volume to outer lug of the tone) now and replaced the green caps with some nice orange drops and the guitar is much brighter now but still darker than I'd like due to the pickups. Got solid core wire bus bars. Hard to tell exactly what might be original either way..

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So, if anyone on here could help me out in helping me identifying this guitar and when and in which factory it may have been built, that'd be great. If you'd like to know or see anything more of it, feel free to let me know.

Cheers,

Dan
 
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Looks to be a well made copy. I don't think its Fujigen or Tokai made but it looks to be made from nice woods and has the usual MIJ hardware that is pretty good quality. It looks MIJ to me.

The way that one pot is indented that way should be a giveaway as to what factory it might have come out of. Also on the side of the pot there are numbers, they'd give you a rough est. of the year of man.

What would you compare it too ??
 
mdvineng said:
http://tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8133&sid=616a229015a93061f0c7479c9069704f

Again, that's all stuff about the Strat copy (Silhouette). No one seems to have anything on the LPs (and the links in that post are now broken if it once did). I found that sort of thing researching it previously and no one there has much solid info like where and when it may have been made although I did see one guy suggest it may have been Matsumoto made somewhere
 
brokentoes said:
Looks to be a well made copy. I don't think its Fujigen or Tokai made but it looks to be made from nice woods and has the usual MIJ hardware that is pretty good quality. It looks MIJ to me.

The way that one pot is indented that way should be a giveaway as to what factory it might have come out of. Also on the side of the pot there are numbers, they'd give you a rough est. of the year of man.

What would you compare it too ??

I don't really have enough experience with MIJ Les Pauls to compare it to anything sadly. It feels very solid and plays well, which are the main things for me. With a set of Dimarzios or Symour Duncans in it, I reckon it would compete with just about any vintage LP of the same sort of era. There's only 'Noble A500k' and a single Greek letter which I think is an Eta marked on the pots
 
Sadly there's nothing in the pics that really pins down the builder :(
As mentioned there is a lot of info regarding the Profile Fender style guitars but zero on the Les Pauls.
They DID make bolt on LP copies and they're easier to pin down compared to the set necks.
It DOES look like a solid cap to me and with a rewire and a set of decent pups it'll be a great player for sure.
 
*neck tenon is off-set like the Fresher brand
*wire channel route looks like Fresher brand
*wire group running from toggle to control route has the 'desert sand' colored insulator like Fresher
*Fresher style truss rod cover

Fresher was produced by Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg.

I'm guessing your Profile was also made by Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg.

YMMV

EDIT: just noticed the frets are super wide & they also look pretty tall; Fresher had the same type wire with the big angle like your fret ends. The frets are a hallmark of the Fresher Leo Nine models = more reason to believe your Profile is from Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg., IMO
 
guitar hiro said:
*neck tenon is off-set like the Fresher brand
*wire channel route looks like Fresher brand
*wire group running from toggle to control route has the 'desert sand' colored insulator like Fresher
*Fresher style truss rod cover

Fresher was produced by Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg.

I'm guessing your Profile was also made by Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg.

YMMV

EDIT: just noticed the frets are super wide & they also look pretty tall; Fresher had the same type wire with the big angle like your fret ends. The frets are a hallmark of the Fresher Leo Nine models = more reason to believe your Profile is from Matsumoto Musical Instruments Mfg., IMO

Hey, thanks very much. There are a couple of other indications I've found that said it 'might' have been Matsumoto but if your info there is correct then I think that pretty much ties it up for sure.

Cheers,

Dan
 
profile were made by fuji gen first in japan,then by cort /samick in korea later.the mij models wood,mik later models plywood ,mainly sold in austalia,and quite popular there ,also called watson https://jedistar.com/profile/
 
https://www.premierguitars.com.au/products/profile-silhouette-mij-strat-japan-1980s
 
Just FYI, I believe the info on that linked site (Jedistar) is often inaccurate and unsupported and then shared widely.

I would follow up on what guitar hiro said.
 

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