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It's always fun to pick up a guitar from a "new" brand, i e one that hasn't passed through here before. And especially so when the guitar turns to be excellent. Like this one, from pickup wizard Willi Lorenz/Billy Lorento/Bill Lawrence's sojourn with his own Japanese guitar brand. The BTOM-60P...

Here's a little number from the weird and wonderful years of the Great Japanese Electric Guitar Craze of the 1960's. And it's a good one. And sure, it's weird in some ways, being kind a mashup of Fender Jaguar and Strat features with a bit of Gretsch thrown in for good measure. But above all...

Ok, so Grecos are infuriatingly messy, sketchy and inconsistent in terms of internal production markings to begin with, so I wasn't terribly surprised when a neck-heel stamp I'd never seen before turned up in a Sept 1978 (with 1979 specs, an unusually early transitional model) TD500 Tele Deluxe...

This very lovely-looking ST100 just sold for 321 100 JPY in Japan (about 2 200 USD). They really don't come up for sale often enough to have an expected current price in the normal sense, but I doubt one has sold for more in Japan? They do resell for that kind of money and more in the West...

Just in: what appears to be a launch ad for the TE series guitars, which first appeared in the 1980 catalog (note the pic of cover of it at the upper left - priced at 300 JPY). Since next years models were launched late in the year, I would suspect that this ad was published in maybe Nov-Dec...

I've currently have a 1979 ST-50BB (neckplate serial 9009707) on my workbench, and I'm trying to ascertain whether or not it's in original condition, refinished or even a parts guitar. To begin with, there is nothing really off in terms of any parts being either non-Tokai or anachronistic for...

This one was literally written around a particular guitar and how it sounded, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't exist if I hadn't bought it. In fact, it was my third-ever MIJ guitar, a 1988 Dyna Gakki-built Burny RLC-60 '60 BL, picked up locally in 2011. I'd never owned a Les Paul before, this one...

Ok, so right now I'm working on two basically identical Hard Punchers. They're both TPB-50G models out of the 1985 catalog, with gold hardware (G), rosewood fretboards and solid paint finishes (i e incl painted neck), one black (ABR) and one in Snow White (ASWR). The serials are 111158 (black)...

Here's a fairly unusual one, in more than one sense, an Aria Pro II RG-680B. It's the only Japanese copy of a Rickenbacker 620, a solid-body model that might well have fallen through the cracks of history hadn't Tom Petty seen fit to sport a 12-string version of it on the cover photo of the 1979...

Very nice one, this, quite a looker. Lake Placid Blue with matching headstock, i e with two 5k JPY custom options ... but still with a 40 sticker, for some reason. Nice condition under a layer of dirt. The pots and jack needed replacement though, they were seized up and rusty, I guess someone...

Ok, so as far as I can see, I've had four, possibly five of these through the years. They're outside of my collection focus, so I've passed them on, but I do find them hard to resist when they (fairly frequently) turn up for sale. There are two reasons for this: they're a) usually very cheap...

A nice guitar that passed through here recently: a 1989 Greco SS-600P2, signature model for Kanako Nakayama, guitarist for the 80s - 90s J-pop band Princess Princess (hence P2). It's different from the standard SS-600 in several ways. Most obviously, the neck has dot fret markers, not block...

Just got this magazine ad, apparently from either very late in '82 or early '83. I've no info on which of the Japanese guitar magazine it was placed in. It appears to be a launch ad for 1983 models featuring the new Extra Tokai FR-style bridge, TST, FSD, SX and MBX. Interestingly, it also...

This one turned up with the last couple of guitars arriving from Japan. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but probably some kind of retailers promo slip, with a Tokai ad on one side, and one for Morris acoustics on the other. There's no sign of it having been cut with scissors or any holes...

I'posted this one when I won the auction, one of the "modded vintage" bass models pictured stamp-sized on the last spread of the 1985 catalog. It finally arrived, and what a great instrument. Only my sense of self-preservation stopped me from hanging on to it ("don't EVER start collecting basses...

Can't help laughing at myself sometimes. I mean, the way I stare at these guitars... but sometimes, you notice weird stuff. Like this: just finished cleaning up a near-mint 1984 TST-60MR (with the 1954 features they had that year, it's basically an -80 in polyurethane finish), and had a...

Here's a guitar that I didn't end up buying, despite it being right up my street. I collect unusual, rare, unique and downright weird Greco SE Strat copies. I have amassed about 15 of them by now, and I've developed quite a keen sense for which oddballs actually came out of Greco's "Order Made...

Here's a bit of a unicorn: a 1982 SS-60YS Silver Star, a one-year-only 1966 copy that's not only rare in itself, but with a twist: it's got a maple cap fretboard, not the rosewood veneer you usually see. On top of that, it seems to be in near-mint condition. If the pictured case is included or...

Pot codes... yeah, well... it's a bit of a black art, innit? :-) I'll share what I know... or rather what I think I know. It's basically all theories in the classic scientific sense, i e interpretations that seem to work and have yet to be disproven. Proof would be credible period documentation...

To misquote The Bard: Is a Tokai not a Tokai under any other name? In this case, I'd say the answer is yes. With a Tokai decal. this one would have been a 1987 TST-55SWR, a Goldstar Sound in Snow White custom finish. But the decal says Bradley, and it has a Made In Japan export sticker. Which...