No Serial..is this a real Tokai bass? help

Tokai Forum

Help Support Tokai Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rnralex

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2010
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Hi everyone, i ve been trying to identify what year was this bass made, the headstock says Tokay Jazz Sounds, but i can t find any serial, and i m not sure now wether this is authentic..perhaps some of you will be able to identify it by the headstock shape?
thanks in advance :wink:
15x0d1.jpg

tys68.jpg

13zy16o.jpg
[/img]
 
I had the same issue with my Thunderbird. No serial number on it anywhere. Mine is Korean made. I wrote Tokai UK, asking them whether they thought it was genuine, explained exactly where and when I bought it (it was new from a store in 2004) and their reply (whilst very quick - think they replied within hours) in its entirety was this:

" I'm certain your bass is 100% genuine"

Thats every single word they wrote me. I was kind of hoping for an explanation for there being no serial number, perhaps a little history about that particular years model etc. but no. just that one sentence. Not even the name of the guy who sent me the reply. So I'm non the wiser really. Although I do feel mine is genuine.
 
First off, having seen a bunch of Jazz Sounds, I'm almost certain that it is an authentic Tokai.

Yours predates when they started printing the serials onto the headstock, so I'm guessing late 90's or 2000's TJB-45. Is there a serial on the neck plate?

The older ones had a little sticker at the heel that designated which version they were, and the newer ones often have a clear sticker that says "Made in Japan" if they're a Japanese Tokai.

It's not a surefire way of knowing if it's authentic or not, but if you take off the neck, often you'll find some writing in the pocket or on the back of the heel that will have the model number. Also, every Tokai bass I've ever seen has a Phillips truss rod, rather than hex.

If I were you, I'd take off the neck anyway, just to see if I had a solid-wood or laminate Jazz Sound, since the cheaper ones in the early 90's had ply bodies.

Caps & pots won't really tell you where your bass was made. My 80's Tokais used pots and caps made by different manufacturers, and although I don't know what the Korean ones use, I can tell you that there are still companies like Mitsubishi making caps and pots in Japan (since I've bought them at the ESP Custom Shop in Osaka).

But, if you like the way it plays, and you like the way it sounds, who cares where it was made? It might be Japanese, it might not. Don't buy into that hokum about where/when something was made.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top