How to choose a good old Tokai strat ?

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coolweb

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Hi,

I'm looking for a new strat and I want to test the old Tokai strats since my friend got one and his old Tokai is beautiful and sound well!

But I don't know anything about Tokai. I have seen the 1981/1982 catalog and there are selling models from 30 000yen to 100 000yen. So I think there is low cost and high end strat from Tokai!

I will certainly buy a Tokai strat from Ebay, so I couldn't test it, but does it is possible with the photos to identify if it is a low cost model or not?

Could you give me some tips to distinguish the good tokai strats from the bad ones ?
- What was the "best" production years/era ? Around 1980 ?
- What are the differences between silver strat, old st, vintage st ?
- Does like many japanese brand, the luthery was nearle of the same quality on all their models but it was mainly the electronic that was changing?

PS: I know that Tokai is still producing good guitars but since all my guitars are new, I want an old one this time :)
PS2: Sorry for my bad english!

thank you,
julien
 
coolweb said:
Hi,
Could you give me some tips to distinguish the good tokai strats from the bad ones ?
- What was the "best" production years/era ? Around 1980 ?
- What are the differences between silver strat, old st, vintage st ?
- Does like many japanese brand, the luthery was nearle of the same quality on all their models but it was mainly the electronic that was changing?

julien

- Yes, around 1980 it's a good era for Tokai's, but my 1984 (I think) Goldstar sounds terribly good.
- The only thing I know is that Silver Stars are copies of '70 Stratocasters (Large headstock, micro tilt neck, bullet truss rod, 3 screws neck).
Sorry if I can't give you much help... :D
 
XLarge said:
coolweb said:
Hi,
Could you give me some tips to distinguish the good tokai strats from the bad ones ?
- What was the "best" production years/era ? Around 1980 ?
- What are the differences between silver strat, old st, vintage st ?
- Does like many japanese brand, the luthery was nearle of the same quality on all their models but it was mainly the electronic that was changing?

julien

- Yes, around 1980 it's a good era for Tokai's, but my 1984 (I think) Goldstar sounds terribly good.
- The only thing I know is that Silver Stars are copies of '70 Stratocasters (Large headstock, micro tilt neck, bullet truss rod, 3 screws neck).
Sorry if I can't give you much help... :D

ok thank you it is a good beguinning to know that silver stars serie have the CBS headstock!

=> guzzibass: not easy to do a search, there is too many post and no tutorials... And 80% of the posts are persons who asked for identifying their tokai...
 
coolweb said:
Hi,



Could you give me some tips to distinguish the good tokai strats from the bad ones ?
- What was the "best" production years/era ? Around 1980 ?
- What are the differences between silver strat, old st, vintage st ?
- Does like many japanese brand, the luthery was nearle of the same quality on all their models but it was mainly the electronic that was changing?

PS: I know that Tokai is still producing good guitars but since all my guitars are new, I want an old one this time :)
PS2: Sorry for my bad english!

thank you,
julien

Hi Julien

Your questions are very difficult to answer as we don't know what you are looking for in a Strat Copy ?

The very high end Tokai Strat Copies were mainly copies of '54 & '57 Strats - so they had maple necks. Are you looking for one like these ?

Low end models have cheaper everything - wood, pickups, electronics, paint, tuners, tremolo etc. But they still play well !! Similar to Fender Mex

The high end models had swamp ash 1 piece bodies, nitro paint, quality hardware, DiMarzio Pickups. Comparable, if not better than Fender USA Custom Shop.

Regards

Chris
 
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