Pressing Boundaries at Tokai

[Sigmania]

It's hard to look at Tokai in the 70s and 80s and not come away feeling like they were pressing boundaries in many ways.

One way was through innovation and attention to detail that was missing at Fender at that time.

They were clearly the first to use CNC in the carving of guitar bodies and necks. I may have found mention of their use as far back as 1978 possibly.

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26556&hilit=cnc+at+tokai

They were thumbing their nose at Fender in many ways while also trying to get lucrative contracts with them in 1981/82.

They then went through a lawsuit via the distributors with Fender in the UK in 1982 that resulted in the change of the spaghetti logo which had contained the word "STRAT".

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25979&start=75

The headstocks were altered for the American market, but Tokai continues to produce Strat copies to this day with the Fender shape headstock.

Not to mention the racy Springy ad that Blue Suede Music in the UK came up with in late 1981.

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26519

And catalog cover in 1986.

https://brochures.yokochou.com/guitar-and-amp/tokai/1986/en_01.html

People bristle at the lawsuit term, but for a little company in Hamamatsu Japan, Tokai has really pressed boundaries and lived on the edge for some time. Seems like part of the lure of the brand.

 

[tokaiaustralia]

Give it another year and you'll have plenty more to say about this topic too.

 

[Sigmania]

Give it another year and you'll have plenty more to say about this topic too.

Interesting. Gotta get my popcorn!

 

[Sigmania]

I guess the opinion that Fender hated Tokai is the author's Antonio Calvosa's?

To me, it seems likely that they actually did. Just Dan Smith calling them "arrogant" indicates it, I guess, it's not really something you'd say about any competitor. And they certainly went after them with a vengeance.

Anectdotally, I've been told that Tokai wasn't exactly popular with the rest of the Japanese industry either. They were considered "outsiders" to begin with, being based in Hamamatsu, not in the traditional woodworking cluster in Matsumotu, i e away from Fujigen, Matsumoku and a lot of small manufacturers. And they appear to have been considered difficult to deal with by that segment of the industry. But like I said, I have no source material for this.

The full 1992 Dan Smith interview quoted from in Calvoso's text is here. Gotta love Smith's first impression of the Fujigen factory: "it was antiquated, but you could eat off the floor".

https://reverb.com/news/interview-f...n-how-to-turn-around-a-faltering-guitar-brand

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25979&p=199264&hilit=dan+smith#p199264