[hans-jürgen]

Found a very interesting article on the Vintage Guitar magazin site about the Fender Telecaster and its copies. The author Michael Wright seems to know his stuff and mentions some facts about the Kasuga and Tokai history in the late '60s and early '70s:

http://www.vintageguitar.com/brands/details.asp?ID=94


Here's a similar remark on another site (now www.myrareguitars.com) mentioning the brand name "Conrad" for the U.S. import guitars:

http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=yarddoggolfer


It seems that this is quoted from an old Guitar Player article (maybe by Michael Wright?), see this thread with nice pictures of Kasuga guitars:

http://www.therathole.org/guitars/ggboard/viewtopic.php?p=7086


Searching for more info I found this site with another forum, too:

http://www.vintaxe.com/
http://www.vintaxe.com/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.pl?frames=no&board=vintaxe&mode=Current

They even host some Tokai catalogs that are not available here (e.g. the one from 1983), but unfortunately not for free:

http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_japanese_tokai.htm
_________________
ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen
BLUEZZ BASTARDZZ "That little ol' ZZ Top cover band from Hamburg"
INDIGO ROCKS "Down home rockin' blues. Tasty as strudel"

[hans-jürgen]

[japanstrat]

Kasuga and Tokai made the Conrad guitars in the 1960's/1970's for export to the US.
Kasuga apparently made some Washburn models around 1988 or so with a serial number starting with a K and they might have also made some Jackson and BC Rico guitars.
They also did BC Rich type copies for the Japanese market with a K on the headstock instead of a B.
Kasuga started their own brand of guitars in the 1960's and in the 1970's made the Heerby and Ganson brands.
"rock = GAN" "village = SON".
In the 1970's they went into partnership with Roland for a while for a guitar synth.
In the 1980's/1990's they made a lot of guitars (OEM) for well known brand names like Yamaha and Burny/Fernandes and the early Navigators.
Kasuga also made lots of bluegrass instruments (banjos, manolins etc)
Kasuga was established in 1935 in Nagoya by Miki Bukichi who went on to be the Japanese Democratic Socialist Party Chairman.
Kasuga made guitars, banjos, mandolins, violins and ukeleles.
Kasuga went out of business in the mid 1990's.
By the start of the 1990's they must have had trouble staying in business as a lot of contracts went to the Korean guitar factories that sprung up in the 1980's and also Taiwan as well.
Kasuga lost the Yamaha Acoustic contract to Taiwan in the late 1980's.