Tokai Guitars Japan is dropped by Ishibashi for 'Poor Qualit

This is from a thread over at Harmony Central:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1274401

Tokai Guitars Japan is dropped by Ishibashi for 'Poor Quality"

email ishibashi asking for a tokai and you will get a reply, something like this:

Firstly, please note our situation. We do not have any Tokai guitar in
stock. We handle it only in case a customer place an order.
Secondly, a craftsmanship of Tokai is not superb. We have often seen a
dent or a scratch or a defective finish work on their guitar although it
just comes from the manufacturer. We do not accept returning for those
reasons.

The craftsmanship of Tokai used to be good. The current products are not.
We have repeatedly advised Tokai to improve the quality but there has
been no improvement.
Tokai does not make their guitars in a large quantity. Also, we obtain
a Tokai item through a supplier. We cannot choose a good one from a few
units. To sell a Tokai item bothers us.
Those are reasons why we do not sell a Tokai item at our stores.

Interesting.

The world of guitar retail is a strange place!!

Now, i've heard similar comments from UK dealers NOT ABOUT TOKAI, but relating to various brands in the past.....generally it means they've had a falling out of some kind. Now ishbashi might be straight on the money with what they are saying...no one really knows other than them.

Distributors and dealers can fall out over all sorts of things, whether it be shop floor % devoted to a certain brand, shop window displayed products, rebates, deals, selling goods on EBay...ALL sorts.

Don't mean to start a conspiracy theory here, but it does make the mind boggle as to what might have kicked off....if anything.

Mass production of guitars will always yeild a small percetage of inferior product that could escalate if QC supervisors are not on top of things. Every company goes thru this, not just Tokai.

Well, why doesn't this news surprise me.

As posted by informerr on HC.

Ladies and gentlemen, please take note that informerr is a "new" member with 2 posts. Additionally, please note the punctuation. The absence of any upper case letters, in particular, at the beginning of a sentence.

so a major worldwide respected dealer drops tokai and advises customers to basically stay away until tokai sorts their stuff out. tokai did not listen to the many calls by them and kept on sending them guitars with defects. tokai sent the guitars back and had to tell the customers to wait longer. then finally they get a guitar with no issues which they send to the customers. but now ishibashi is fed up and drops them.

whats going on?

also check these threads:

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=5954

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6043

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6012

and:-

dont have a tokai, thats not me lol.

onbongos, i wanted to make that accurate gibson copy joke man, you stole my light

The above are from HC.

Let me also draw your attention to the following posts here:-

nice excuses guitarslinger, i'm sure some guys will eat that. you quoted at least 80 pounds/147 dollars/117 euros more. like someone said, before trying to convince some customers to buy from you, make sure the figures you give them are correct, is that so much to ask? you confessed that you didn't do your job properly by rushing and checking 1 online shop. the prices were not in japanese, just your avergae western numbers, so that excuse is also laughable.so does this mean that you will sell the lc85 for 470 pounds instead of the 579 you ask now on your site i noticed? 470 pounds is what it would cost if you bought from japan, taxes and shipping included and you said you would match the quoted prices. or was this another lie?

and:-

gibson needed a slap in the face for all their policies of late and prs proudly gave them one, youre all welcome

this:-

well said sgrocks. exactly my views. i have seen many silly remarks here directed against people who have a right to speak too. very biased orthodox forum from what i have seen in the last few weeks.

then this:-

supreme, i've been following this from the seymour duncan messageboard and first it sucks to get treated like that. second it sucks that some biased people here have attacked you in other threads, just silly. third, buy a prs and no issues at all

more:-

well jokov, as long as you don't post high detailed pics, the name of the dealer so i can call him, i'm gonna say you are displaying bullsh1t from the cheapest barn in finland

more again:-

i'm and american in germany, dusseldorf, close to the center. my email is [email protected]. name me the prs dealer who was selling 4 prs guitars with ruined necks, i wanna call the guy. also give me your name so i can tell him you discovered all this in his shop. you still sound like you display bullsh1t from the cheapest barn in finland,don't start crying

and finally:-

this has got to be the most biased forum on the net. of course someone can talk about a guitar with issues, what's wrong with you all. you even surpassed the gibson nutters as far as i can read here. if a dealer like ishibashi dropped prs, i would definitely take it seriously instead of attacking the ones who got burnt already.

Allow me to, with respect to the above, suggest that it may not be outside the realms of possibility that the keyboard used by two completely different people to type all the above posts are missing both "Shift" keys.

Or, would it be plausible to conclude that it is actually the very same person that has posted all of the above posts?

Or, alternatively, are these simply coincidences with absolutely no connection whatsoever?

With the recent flurry of posts about various issues, it seems that some folk like to "kick a man while he is down".

In the fullness of time, all the facts will be seen and common sense will prevail. In the meantime, we seem to be going around and around in circles and not getting any result apart from evoking emotions that, are of no benefit to anybody.

I am saying we need to "separate the wheat from the chaff" and not play "tit for tat" games.

Perhaps my post here perpetuates this. I am not looking for responses, simply asking ourselves to look at how easy it is to lower ourselves to a level, that quite frankly, I believe members of this forum are above.

Peter

stratmoto, you like watching x-files? and way too much time in your hands? this forum is filled with paranoid people, i'm telling you. i never posted in my life on hc.

edit, look what i found in general discussion, bruno doesn't use capitals either. he types exactly as i do.....maybe he posted that thread on hc?

bruno said:

however it's more than obvious we're not going to win the cup, not even close, I'm not even sure we'll cut it against iran or mexico, like you said, the egos are huge within that team

Click to expand...

i also know of a few people on a few other forums who type like me, no caps because it is faster, it's chat spelling. get a life strat :wink:

and may I try to understand exactly why you are bringing my name into this discussion PRS24??

bruno said:

and may I try to understand exactly why you are bringing my name into this discussion PRS24??

Click to expand...

to prove more people type like that, no caps like me, nothing personal dude.

I would apreciate if you could maybe find another way of making your point...

thanks

strange forum indeed. are you guys taking the piss, for real? i mean this all can't be real right?

OK PRS24 I'm going to state the obvious here; if we're all a bunch of paranoid people and if we're all strange and we're all brainwashed by Tokai... why have you been posting here so much in the last days? Are you trying to convert us?

dont know what all the fuss is about with capitals and shift keys
i type with one finger and as long as members understand what im on about why worry about shift and caps and conspiracies

hey okay u guys can use me as an example
i rarely type with the shift key...
ive not touched enough guitars to merit a say in these ' x vs. y ' threads but again, i dont usually use the shift key.

in my opinion when u accuse someone of doubling up on names it's really hard to prove or dissprove... so alot of wasted energy here guys...

nop Pegcityrocker, couldn't care less what you play. seriously, you enjoy your tokai, i?ll enjoy my prs, no problem. i just read some guys here were a bit fanatic so i thought lemme check it out, it can't be that bad. well.......was i wrong. that stalker post by stratmot proved it again, dear oh me. btw strat, for your research, on this forum i found another member who types like me, pongx. go accuse him too, agent mulder. edit, i just noticed a few members typed in this thread not using caps too, call the cops lol.

OK, PRS24, if you say it's not your work, then of course, I have to believe you. I did offer 3 choices.

Sorry if I upset you, seriously.

As mentioned above by myself, lets not lower ourselves to a level that, as adults, we should consider childish. In hindsight, I did exactly that.

Frank and open debate is what forums should be about. The stalking and x-files stuff, well, I can understand that, although it is not true.

Perhaps the post was OTT, and I accept responsibility for inflaming the situation. It won't happen again.

OK, friends now?

Peter

no worries peter, i have no problems with anyone, anywhere. i just don't understand all the fuss, is all. i will stop posting here though because outsiders are not wanted, which is fine with me too.

take care all, no hard feelings

err, to the threadstarter, please look around carefully i have started a VERY SIMILAR thread very recently, this thread should be locked

Tokai Guitars Japan is dropped by Ishibashi for 'Poor Qualit

Click to expand...

I get from an official following info:

Ishibashi was buying Tokai guitars from the Japanese Tokai distributor not from Tokai itsself.
Ishibashi was cancelled by Japanes Tokai distributor.
Due bad dealer job: They did not carry and stock any Tokai guitar.
They only order from the distributor on behalf of customers order.

Probably a revanche foul of Ishibashi ! :evil:

togps said:

Tokai Guitars Japan is dropped by Ishibashi for 'Poor Qualit

Click to expand...

I get from an official following info:

Ishibashi was buying Tokai guitars from the Japanese Tokai distributor not from Tokai itsself.
Ishibashi was cancelled by Japanes Tokai distributor.
Due bad dealer job: They did not carry and stock any Tokai guitar.
They only order from the distributor on behalf of customers order.

Probably a revanche foul of Ishibashi ! :evil:

Click to expand...

Lol,there comes another guitar dealer trying to blame everyone but Tokai because he knows this is bad for his busines.Tokai have said they get most of their guitars directly from Tokai,some from distibutor,get your facts straight.


Also Ishibashi repeatedly warned Tokai directly for their low quality, making some customers wait because they sent the guitars back.Tokai did not respond accordingly so they got dumped like a rock.


You are not a reliable source because you have financial interests here being a Tokai dealer,and also you did not reveal your 'official'.Name that 'official' and let Ishibashi contact him and give him all the info.Why hide?

I have no idea what the situation is in Japan....but most major brands expect you to hold some sort of stocking plan here in the UK.

Not keeping up you stock levels as appropriate is one way of getting into grief...NOT saying that this is definitely the case with Ishibashi. But i sense there might be two sides to this coin....and we're just getting the Ishibashi side.

It will all come out in the end i'm sure.