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I know Ishibashi simply stopped shipping Japanese Fender guitars to Europe and the US a while ago, they still have them in their store though so I don't think that is the reason why they are not offering Tokais. I think that international business is only a very small percentage of their sales. And you can buy anything from the U-BOX, but the Tokais are always gone fast. :lol:

It's probably the low supply and the fear of Gibson since they also have a huge selection of Gibson guitars and they want to keep it that way. But they do sell Edwards.

Ikebe-Gakki has a few Tokais, but most of them are Talbos. They also have Gibsons and the Bacchus Universe series. I guess that Gibson isn't too worried about them.
 
8) mr.kamiya does at least 3 businesses all together by himself
so he often cant be at the store so long. super busy man
he is. when he gets hundreds of emails including whatever
he may not be able to get to your emails coz all chaotic there.
so thats his situation i think. trust me he is one of the kindest gtr
shop man i have ever known here in japan. he always never mind
it when my charge was a few bucks. i pay him laters whenever.
this is very rare today to find. as the relationship between the store
and just a customer from hundreds of miles away. he does these
3 all at once everyday, as the general manager i think.
the store, the studio, the music school.....so now we better shut up.

try kurosawa for the constant international business. they always
have some LS150s and 335 copys and some more........

fender japan is always too popular in japan but tokai isnt since
the mid 80s. today tokai isnt any important to any stores really
so only some tokai lover stores do carry them basically.
whereas fender japans are everywhere in japan. from a tiny
shop to the huge stores. tokai and ishibashi are both afraid of
gibson and USA. so they dont wanna sell tokai to the outside
of japan too many to avoid the trouble especially to USA.
fender japan is kinda the same. they dont wanna sell them too
many because of fender mexico/korea/china products in the
world. but at least they dont have to worry of the patent issues
coz its fender. no problem at the custom. but tokai does sometimes
or often when the numbers of them coming into USA are too many.
the situations.











8) tokai joe.
 
Up until 2 years ago (IIRC) Ishibashi still shipped Fenders to Europe, I know because I had ordered one. They must have stopped doing that recently which is NO problem though because the U-BOX is always full of them. Finding Tokais in there isn't easy because you have to know the Japanese spelling (they are never listed as Tokai, but as 東海 - are they hiding them from the foreigners?)

If given the choice between Fender Japan and a nice Tokai I would honestly chose the Tokai. I have a recent Fender Japan tele which is pretty nice, but I think that Tokai can do better :)
 
ArKay said:
If given the choice between Fender Japan and a nice Tokai I would honestly chose the Tokai. I have a recent Fender Japan tele which is pretty nice, but I think that Tokai can do better :)

+ 1
 
If given the choice between Fender Japan and a nice Tokai I would honestly chose the Tokai. I have a recent Fender Japan tele which is pretty nice, but I think that Tokai can do better
_________________
-- Rainer


8) u know your tele can be the tokai made at 50% possibility
if its the post 1997 fender japan model. i see the post fujigen
years fender japan gtrs being about 50%-50% in japan lately.
about half tokai made and half dyna gakki made. i know how
to see tokai or dyna gakki but dont say it here since i expect
a lot of stupid arguments coming anytime and get disgusted.
maybe someday we will know it officially by fender japan.
fujigen, tokai, dyna gakki, all very good. no mistakes!

old tokai gtrs were a lot different from todays tokai gtrs.
both are very good but the vintage ones they used a lot of
better natural materials which were easy to get back then
for tokai or any good gtr companies. not only the woods
but other materials too. so the vintage tokais feel very natural
and personal than the modern ones just like good 100%
orange juice feels so to us than only 50% natural orange juice.
vintage tokais are very nice. both gibson and fender copys.
we better keep em precious! good old stuff........






8) tokai joe.
 
Some of the Fender Japan stuff looks rather cheaply made to me. Here's a recent CIJ Tele for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=120422571912

Have a look at the pic of the back of the body - have you ever seen a Tokai Strat or Tele with such badly matched joins? I would prefer to stick to Tokai, thanks.
 
stratman323 said:
Some of the Fender Japan stuff looks rather cheaply made to me. Here's a recent CIJ Tele for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=120422571912

Have a look at the pic of the back of the body - have you ever seen a Tokai Strat or Tele with such badly matched joins? I would prefer to stick to Tokai, thanks.

My Tele is a CIJ TL-52 and it has nothing to do with that stuff :grin: The cut of wood is great, well matched and the neck is impressive. However, I had to replace all electronics and I passed through 4 different set of pick ups until I could get any decent sound.

I had to shield too because this guitar was extremely noisy regardless the kind of pick ups you installed, I don't know why. Two of the sets that I tried were humbuckers in single-coil casing and you still had a lot of hum. :cry:
 
Oh the original pickups in the Tele were rubbish. The neck one fell apart when I tried to take the cover off, & had to be sent back to Fender!
 
stratman323 said:
Oh the original pickups in the Tele were rubbish. The neck one fell apart when I tried to take the cover off, & had to be sent back to Fender!

What model did you have?
 
62RI, bound body. It should have been called a Tele Custom, but the Japanese ones left off the Custom bit. The later USRIs got that bit right, but there weren't any US ones till about 1999.

This is the only pic I can find of it in original condition.

Tele.jpg
 
Regarding telecasters and strats, more than looking at one particular brand, lately I'm interesested in building a custom Tele and Strat with my own specifications :grin: so no more Fender Japan for me.
 
Yup, the newer sunburst Fender Japan teles usually have horrible bookmatching, that's why I got mine in OLB (Old Lake Placid Blue). The finish looks a little uneven. I have seen a few examples where the neck plate wasn't even centered. Those are a little older than mine and the serial number looks different.

Fender-Vintage-62-Telecaster-Custom-BLK_5.jpg


But the sunburst looked pretty good then!

Fender-62-Custom-Tele-Japan-3TS-Sunburst_5.jpg
Fender-62-Custom-Tele-Japan-3TS-Sunburst_1.jpg


I also have a 62RI. They are selling them here in Germany, but I got mine from Ishibashi.

tl62b82tx_02.jpg
tl62b82tx_03.jpg
tl62b82tx_08.jpg


http://arkay.de/guitars/fender/index.html

Joe can probably tell which factory made them... Both seem to have flaws though.

To be fair, I consider those guitars budget models. 75,000JPY with US pickups for mine isn't a lot of money for a MIJ guitar so they have to be cutting a few corners.
 
ArKay said:
75,000JPY with US pickups for mine isn't a lot of money for a MIJ guitar so they have to be cutting a few corners.

Well, in my case I had a strange experience with the texas special set that came with my CIJ 52.

When I received the guitar, it came with an allegedly set of US Texas Specials and japanese electronics; mini-pots and a plastic switch. The guitar was extremely noisy and useless. However, when unplugged, it was extremely resonant and the whole thing was a very light weight.

I was advised to change the pots and switch first, and so I did but with no good results, same degree of hum/noise and the sound was somehow microphonic, piercing, still useless.

I started to try different pick up sets and somebody passed me a boxed texas specials set from the Fender custom shop. First, I thought it was no sense to try them because it was allegedly the very same set that it came stock.

I tried anyway and... :eek: it was another guitar. Good sound, no microphonics but still noisy. I purchased for cheap on ebay an "original vintage" bridge from the custom shop (the 52ri one), I shielded and now I have the ultimate twanggy machine.

I lent the stock texas special bridge to a friend, he installed in his american standard tele... and wtf, it sounded amazing. I have read this same history on the internet several times so I don't know what's going on with Fender Japan and its electronics. Pick ups do not sound good in their guitars but they do sound great in america made teles? WTF
 
That's really weird! Some people I know who got the same model as I do, or the one with the Bigsby don't like the sound of the guitar at all.

The electronics should do their job...

tl62b82tx_14.jpg


At least they are using full-sized pots which work great. I haven't checked the cap value.

Mine wasn't set up AT ALL when I got it, had plenty of neck relief which was difficult to adjust since it meant taking the neck off (access is at the neck heel). I also tweaked the height of the pickups... sounds pretty good to my ears.

I have since replaced the stock saddles with Wilkinson compensated ones, wasn't fond of the stock (period correct) ones.

tl62b82tx_04.jpg


67277992.jpg
 
Yeah, I'd rather have one of those old MIJ Fender models :p

I love the finishes Fender Japan uses.
 
ArKay said:
At least they are using full-sized pots which work great. I haven't checked the cap value.

Mine has the same switch but mini-pots :grin: I had to replace the whole tone-control because regular CTS pots didn't fit the plate holes nor the top hat holes.
 
ganzua said:
I started to try different pick up sets and somebody passed me a boxed texas specials set from the Fender custom shop. First, I thought it was no sense to try them because it was allegedly the very same set that it came stock.

I tried anyway and... :eek: it was another guitar. Good sound, no microphonics but still noisy. I purchased for cheap on ebay an "original vintage" bridge from the custom shop (the 52ri one), I shielded and now I have the ultimate twanggy machine.

I lent the stock texas special bridge to a friend, he installed in his american standard tele... and wtf, it sounded amazing. I have read this same history on the internet several times so I don't know what's going on with Fender Japan and its electronics. Pick ups do not sound good in their guitars but they do sound great in america made teles? WTF

It's not just Fender Japan. Texas Specials are strange pickups. I assume you experimented with pickup height? TSs are very sensitive to that, they can sound awful if you get it a bit out.

It also doesn't help that not all TSs have markings - some come with the Custom Shop stamp, some don't. So how are you supposed to know what you have? Incidentally, why do so many pickup manufacturers not bother to stamp on the bottom who made the pickups and what model they are?

But it's true, they can sound great on one guitar, and terrible in another guitar. They work best with ash/sen bodied guitars, in my experience. They were awful in my US Strat, but great in my sen Springy, so they do work in Japanese guitars!
 
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