Hey guys, thanks for having me.

[MarkyMark71]

Hoping all is well with you all, just wanted to say a quick hi and introduce myself.

Been playing guitar since the 80's and have always had a soft spot for Tokai's and Japanese guitars in general.

I have Custom Edition SR605 (one of the few guitars that I've owned that I've never felt the need to change a thing on) and a Goldstar Sound ST-50 from 1985 and they are amongst my favourite guitars.

I recently picked up another Tokai but for the life of me I cannot find it anywhere in any catalogue. It is a Custom Edition and has a "75" sticker on the back of the neck and a serial number "225308" stamped on the neck plate. The neck and headstock are bound and as you can see the neck has 24 frets with sharkfin inlays, the strange thing is that it has a 24.75" (Gibson) scale length rather than the more traditional 25.5" (Fender) scale length for this type of guitar. The top of the body isn't contoured at all and it has what appears to be faux binding on the body which could be a maple cap (see 2nd pic). The pickups are the original L White in a HSS configuration and it has a "Mfg. under Floyd Rose Pats." tremolo rather than an Ayers Rocker V that is present on my SR605.

Any help in identifying this would be great, but I'm not that hung up on it as it plays and sounds great.

I know this is a Tokai forum but also thought it's worth mentioning the other Japanese guitars I have:

Yamaha RGX 612JS (1992)
Greco Guitar Device Explorer w/Kahler (1984)
Greco EG800C (1977)
Charvel 550XL (1989)
Edwards E-LP (Unsure of model from 2004)

Thanks again for having me and I look forward to chatting with you some time soon.

All the best

Mark

 

[Sigmania]

Very cool. Welcome. And that binding is wild.

Date would be 1987/88 I would say.

Here are some other Tokais with the Concorde headstock. I don’t have time to look right now but maybe you will see something close you yours.

Concorde Headstock Tokais

 

[MarkyMark71]

Hey Sigmania,

Many thanks for the welcome, the response and information, most of which I had seen before but there wasn't anything close enough. However this Tokai Custom Edition Super Strat could be a twin if it wasn't for the fact that the top on mine is solid black and I suspect the trem was swapped out by the previous owner, everything else looks to be the same. Will hunt around to see if I can find the model number.

Thanks again

 

[Sigmania]

It may well be a limited production model. This is around the time of the Vivian Campbell model as well.

Nice guitar!

 

[MarkyMark71]

Thanks again, if it is it then it makes it more of a bargain, but then again I just love how it plays and sounds so cost doesn't come into it as I would have been okay paying 3 times what I won it for.

Part of me is tempted to see what the top is like under the black and maybe refinish with a translucent colour.

Almost snagged a VC75 a few weeks ago but the bidding price against the wear and damage didn't make sense so I dropped out.