Goldstar Identification - Help needed

I acquired this Goldstar sound recently. It has been ****ed around with a bit, so I'm having trouble identifying it exactly.

The tuners are stamped "Deluxe" - I haven't bothered putting a picture up. Photo of the headstock follows, the locking nut is, it goes without saying, a later addition.


The neck markings are pretty hard to read - it seems to say 10-?



If there are any body markings, they can't be read, as a previous owner has painted the entire body cavity with some kind of conductive paint for some reason. I can't chip it off to see. You can see it on the lefthand side of the picture of the neck cavity. I assume that the shim has been added later. The finish is a slightly metallic blue, which has discoloured to slightly greenish where it has been exposed to the light.



The tone controls have been completely bypassed, but as far as I can see the pots are original. I'm pretty sure the selector switch has been replaced. The wires are plastic-covered.



The pickups are pictured below. I haven't bothered posting a picture of the bridge as it has been replaced with a Schaller.



Serial number is L145**

I've been searching through the forum trying to find an answer as to the age/model of this guitar, but if anything I'm becoming MORE confused?!?

In my first post I stated that I thought that the selector switch had been replaced, but trawling the archives it seems that there were plenty of Tokais fitted with the YM-50 switch as pictured. Does anyone know what date they started/finished doing this? Can anyone date the guitar from the switch and pickup assembly as pictured?

I didn't mention the scratchplate/pickguard, which is 3-Ply mint green with black centre. I'm pretty sure this is consistent with it being a replica of an early 60s strat in Lake Placid Blue.

What's really confusing me is that according to the registry pics of the headstock it should be mid 80s, but as far as I can tell the switch indicated that it might be much newer than that. I put this in the pre-85 subforum, but I'm not convinced now that this was the right place.

Hmmm, that's an interesting one. Well done for posting pics from the start - you wouldn't believe how often we have to tell new members that we can't do much without pics.

My first thought when I saw the headstock was that it was a standard mid 80s Goldstar, but the scratchplate, pickups etc look wrong. I have 2 Goldstars from 84/85, and all the Goldies from this period have a really neat little brass plate under the controls with raised lugs for soldering the earth wires to - a rare improvement on the original Fender design. Here's my 84 ST55:



Notice the distinctive Tokai switch, with 4 lugs on the top and 4 on the bottom (very good switches). I reckon that the whole scratchplate on yours, including pickups, switch etc has been replaced. If it's mint green, it won't be a Tokai, as they were white and didn't usually discolour with age. The pickups look wrong for a mid 80s Tokai too.

I can't really see the colour from your pics, but it doesn't look like a Tokai colour that I've seen - any better pics? It could be a mid 80s Goldstar neck on a different body, though it's going to be hard to tell if the Tokai body markings have been covered up.

As you're new, you may not be aware that we do offer a service to deal with people who mistreat Tokais like that. Send us the name and address of the culprit, together with ?500 in used notes in a brown paper bag, and we'll make sure they never commit a crime like that again. :wink:

Welcome to the forum!

Mike

The catalogue picture below show a Tokai in the same finish, LB. So presumably this is a something-or-other LBR as it has the rosewood neck.



The picture below from the 86-86 catalogue shows an AST62 LBR - Different headstock for sure, and a 3-ply pickguard/scratchplate (albeit listed as white).



The 12th fret dot markers on mine seem to be closer to each other than those in the (later) neck pictured above, or maybe I'm imagining it. Any info on marker positioning out there?[/img]

What I could see from the glimpses in your pics looked too light to be Lake Placid Blue - it doesn't usually fade that much on a poly finished guitar.

With regard to dot marker spacings, here is my 1980 Springy ST60 & my 1984 Goldstar ST50, during the great polar bear attack a few weeks ago. Both guitars survived....

My one's just like your ST50, the dots are close together. As to the colour, it is darker in real life than it seems from the pictures, but that's digital photography with a flash for you!

OK, as LPB is my favourite Strat colour ever, I'd like to see a pic of the whole guitar, if you have one. Maybe someone just decided to replace the scratchplate - that strange "snot green" has been popular lately, though I don't like it. Not sure what the pickups are though - what does it sound like?

I guess you could always remove the locking nut?

Well, just to keep you happy I've taken a pic. I took the locking nut off for the photo, but I'm going to have to put it back on. The bridge is Kahler, not Schaller as I said earlier (must have been up too late the other day!). I'm going to have to keep the locking nut on, because the Kahler will need it (once I've found a trem arm).

You're right about the scratchplate being changed, when I take it off I can see the holes where the original was screwed in. Look in particular at the position of the screw to the LHS of the middle pickup - much higher up on my scrathplate, and there is a hole corresponding to your pick of your ST50 underneath.

The digital photo is not that accurate in terms of colour however - the scratchplate looks white (it IS mint green), and the guitar looks a bit greener in reality due to the lacquer ageing.

Yes, Tokai used the screw spacing on the scratchplate that Fender used from about 1964 onwards, which involved moving the screw to the left of the middle pickup further down. This is because rosewood board Goldies & Springys were pretty much copies of 64 Strats, complete with thin rosewood cap board, rather than the earlier slab board used on the Fender (US & Japan) 62 re-issues.

As a comparison, here is the same ST50 next to my 1988 Fender US62RI. Notice the slab board, as well as different screw positions. Clearly your new scratchplate was designed for a Fender 62RI. I never was sure why Fender bothered to move that screw in 64.

I get the impression that Tokai's version of Lake Placid Blue is a bit lighter than Fender's - could anyone else confirm this?

David Gilmour took his Kahler off of his famous black strat. If you prefer the vintage thing, it can be done. It would be alot harder to match your color than the black on his guitar I'm sure. Just thought I'd throw it out there. :wink:

Here's a before and after.

Anyone got any ideas as to the pickups/electronics?

" Look in particular at the position of the screw to the LHS of the middle pickup - much higher up on my scrathplate, and there is a hole corresponding to your pick of your ST50 underneath. "

I just bought a replacement scratchplate for mine but notice this screwhole is a difference. Looking at pics of Old Fenders they seemed to move the hole higher in 1959 but now it seems to be back lower on current models.

Interesting the pre-'59s only seemed to have 8 mounting holes whereas the current models have 11 holes that seem to match the Tokai.

Yes, Fender changed from a single ply SP fastened with 8 screws to a 3 ply SP with 11 screws in 1959, the same year they changed from a fretted maple neck to a slab rosewood board neck.

but interestingly not to the design used by Tokai, even though they are based on the old designs, which seems to be more modern with the screw near the middle pickup.

As I said in my earlier post, Tokai use the 1964 screw positions, as Goldstars and Springys are (roughly) 64 copies. Most (but not all) of the Fender re-issues are copies of 62s, so they have the earlier screw postions.

Wouldn't that mean it's not a ST50 but a ST50R (or something else) using the data in the Tokai registry, as ST50 are copies of 1956-1960 models ?

Technically yes, a Lake Placid Blue ST55 with a rosewood board would be a ST55LBR. That's what the catalogue says, but in practice people tend to not use the R suffix when referring to their rosewood board models. The 55s are custom colour versions of the 50s.

Hey Blue-Audio,

Just wondering where you managed to get the 'Strat colours' pic from?

regards
Peter Mac