If anyone checked out the 1982 Greco SE-600HH Music Land Key store order guitar I posted recently: I mentioned in passing that that guitar is one of only two otherwise vintage-styled dual-humbucker Greco Strats I know of. So, I thought I'd introduce you to the other one.
Meet the 1978 SE-700MR as ordered and sold by retailer Laox, still going, with a main store in the Akihabara district in Tokyo. As far as I can tell, they're not in the music businesss anymore, selling consumer electronics these days.
But, to be honest, it's more of a reconstruction than a full-on original, even if it is close enough, as far as I can tell. Please read on...
The Laox original Fender copies are easily identified, for once. All of them (four Strats and a P-bass) have the Fender Mustang style "Competition Stripe" across the rear top bout and metallic custom finishes. Two of the Strat models are pretty standard except for the finish, one SE500 and a -600, but the two top models are different: there's the SE-700 HH model, and an SE-750 with two PU-100W singe coils and one U-2000 humbucker, the latter oddly enough in the neck position.
The reason that we we know unusually much about these order-made guitar is that Laox advertised them quite heavily in the Japanese guitar magazines during 1978. I have scans of six different ads from the summer and autumn of that year, this one being the earliest, published inJuly.
The P-bass and a white Les Paul model (without the go-faster stripe...) called LA-700 is missing here, but all the Strats are featured. However, when mine arrived, it looked like this:
I first had it down as a SE-500 model, but looking inside, it turned out to have non-original pickups (possibly Duncans?), US electronics and a pickguard without the typical Maxon/Fujigen date stamp. So obviously a modded guitar. But looking further...
...it turned out to have a HSH rout in a body that was pretty obviously mahogany, as well as what looks like a "7" hand-written in the neck pocket as well as on the neck heel. I have another Laox Strat, an original SE-500 with an SSS-routed sen body, so this was definitely something different. Also, the fretboard radius turned out to be 9,5 in, also really odd for a standard strat.
So, I assumed it was originally an HH SE-700 or an SSH SE-750. A friend of mine had an original SE-750 at the time, and that one had a SSH rout. So, I decided to go with the SE-700 theory. None of the SE-700s shown in the ads have a rosewood board, but I've seen enough variation in that departments to feel relatively sure that they likely came with both neck types. And since the "7" on the neck heel mirrored the one on the body, I was pretty sure it was the original neck. So I managed to source a pair of 1978 U-2000s and used MIJ vintage pots, cap and switch.
Looking through the ads, I realised I had two more decisions to make. Covered or uncovered pickups and single-ply 8-screw or laminated 11-screw pickguard? The ads showed both, though uncovered pickups and single-ply guard were more common. I decided to keep the pup covers on (mostly to avoid messing with vintage pickups in good original condition) and to go for a single-ply guard, for one simple reason: I had to make it myself. No replacement parts had the correct distance between the pickps. So, I bought white pickguard stock, made a cardboard template and broke out the Dremel and files. It took a while, but once I'd stopped coughing up plastic dust, I was pretty pleased with the result. Don't wanna do it again, though.
All in all, a very nice guitar, lovely pickups, nice, wide neck with some depth to it. The flatter fretboard makes it feel surprisingly "modern". The maho body makes it quite heavy, a hair under 4 kg but it's still a comfy player. I'll definitely keep it around, it's a really nice humbucker guitar if you're a Fenderhead. We'll see if one in original condition turns up, but frankly, I doubt it, I can't recall ever seeing one either before or after I got this one. I might have missed a couple, of course, but it's probably safe to say that the LAOX SE-700 wasn't a big seller.
Here are the rest of the scanned ads for the Laox range I have available. There is a lot of text in them, but almost nothing detailing the guitars, other than the pic captions. I guess ad space was exepensive and they were determined to cram as much of their offering into them as possible...
August '78.
Sept '78
Oct '78
Nov '78
Dec '78
Meet the 1978 SE-700MR as ordered and sold by retailer Laox, still going, with a main store in the Akihabara district in Tokyo. As far as I can tell, they're not in the music businesss anymore, selling consumer electronics these days.
But, to be honest, it's more of a reconstruction than a full-on original, even if it is close enough, as far as I can tell. Please read on...
The Laox original Fender copies are easily identified, for once. All of them (four Strats and a P-bass) have the Fender Mustang style "Competition Stripe" across the rear top bout and metallic custom finishes. Two of the Strat models are pretty standard except for the finish, one SE500 and a -600, but the two top models are different: there's the SE-700 HH model, and an SE-750 with two PU-100W singe coils and one U-2000 humbucker, the latter oddly enough in the neck position.
The reason that we we know unusually much about these order-made guitar is that Laox advertised them quite heavily in the Japanese guitar magazines during 1978. I have scans of six different ads from the summer and autumn of that year, this one being the earliest, published inJuly.
The P-bass and a white Les Paul model (without the go-faster stripe...) called LA-700 is missing here, but all the Strats are featured. However, when mine arrived, it looked like this:
I first had it down as a SE-500 model, but looking inside, it turned out to have non-original pickups (possibly Duncans?), US electronics and a pickguard without the typical Maxon/Fujigen date stamp. So obviously a modded guitar. But looking further...
...it turned out to have a HSH rout in a body that was pretty obviously mahogany, as well as what looks like a "7" hand-written in the neck pocket as well as on the neck heel. I have another Laox Strat, an original SE-500 with an SSS-routed sen body, so this was definitely something different. Also, the fretboard radius turned out to be 9,5 in, also really odd for a standard strat.
So, I assumed it was originally an HH SE-700 or an SSH SE-750. A friend of mine had an original SE-750 at the time, and that one had a SSH rout. So, I decided to go with the SE-700 theory. None of the SE-700s shown in the ads have a rosewood board, but I've seen enough variation in that departments to feel relatively sure that they likely came with both neck types. And since the "7" on the neck heel mirrored the one on the body, I was pretty sure it was the original neck. So I managed to source a pair of 1978 U-2000s and used MIJ vintage pots, cap and switch.
Looking through the ads, I realised I had two more decisions to make. Covered or uncovered pickups and single-ply 8-screw or laminated 11-screw pickguard? The ads showed both, though uncovered pickups and single-ply guard were more common. I decided to keep the pup covers on (mostly to avoid messing with vintage pickups in good original condition) and to go for a single-ply guard, for one simple reason: I had to make it myself. No replacement parts had the correct distance between the pickps. So, I bought white pickguard stock, made a cardboard template and broke out the Dremel and files. It took a while, but once I'd stopped coughing up plastic dust, I was pretty pleased with the result. Don't wanna do it again, though.
All in all, a very nice guitar, lovely pickups, nice, wide neck with some depth to it. The flatter fretboard makes it feel surprisingly "modern". The maho body makes it quite heavy, a hair under 4 kg but it's still a comfy player. I'll definitely keep it around, it's a really nice humbucker guitar if you're a Fenderhead. We'll see if one in original condition turns up, but frankly, I doubt it, I can't recall ever seeing one either before or after I got this one. I might have missed a couple, of course, but it's probably safe to say that the LAOX SE-700 wasn't a big seller.
Here are the rest of the scanned ads for the Laox range I have available. There is a lot of text in them, but almost nothing detailing the guitars, other than the pic captions. I guess ad space was exepensive and they were determined to cram as much of their offering into them as possible...
August '78.
Sept '78
Oct '78
Nov '78
Dec '78
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