Tokai To Be "Japanese Made Guitars Only"?

[Sigmania]

tokaiaustralia, if you are reading this, would love to hear more.

Saw this post on another forum:

(October 4, 2022)

"They've released a couple of press releases in Japan about the sale of the company. Legally there's some things we can't discuss yet.

Long story short: company sold to a company called Grace who also own Unisound, new owners are moving back to Japanese made guitars only (especially important for the Australian market as the previous distributor was having counterfeit guitars built in China).

It's a slow process but will be worth it in the long term, rebuilding the brand takes time. It'll be very familiar but very different at the same time."

Tokai Australia gone

 

[tokaiaustralia]

I believe this is still the case.

I'm unfortunately no longer working with Tokai though so won't be able to provide any more insight going forward and won't be around the forum. They're selling stock direct to stores in Australia moving forward.

 

[Sigmania]

Ahhh. Ok. Best wishes and good luck.

 

[luis]

Tokai traspassing to Grace will be completed at the end of this month with new managgement and people commanding Tokai.I whish them the best of lucks. Hope to be in touch with them if they agree.

Also I would like to give my deepest thanks to Adachi-san Tokai President for the great times I had with him and his informations. We talked in the past a lot about special order models, any were implemented in catalogs. I am very glad helping Tokai, a lot!

Regards!

 

[bluejeannot]

Good move. Japan is best.

 

[trubolp]

I applaud the decision. I'm tired of UK Tokai dealers only selling China models, which only further cements the notion that Tokai are "cheap Gibbo copies". And to be honest, I bought a Chinese LC60 a few years ago, and sent it back because it did feel like a cheap clone made out of plywood (with non-standard hardware, eg bridge posts).

 

[Tsjackson]

I applaud the decision. I'm tired of UK Tokai dealers only selling China models, which only further cements the notion that Tokai are "cheap Gibbo copies". And to be honest, I bought a Chinese LC60 a few years ago, and sent it back because it did feel like a cheap clone made out of plywood (with non-standard hardware, eg bridge posts).

I wanted to buy an LS144s (or a 220s if money allowed) and couldn’t find one in the U.K. at all, I would’ve happily bought second hand but I assume due to what you’ve rightly said that hadn’t occurred to me before they just aren’t around enough to be for sale anywhere really if your after something specific.

I ended up ordering one (a 144) from Japan, and I’m actually really happy to have bought it from where it was made and it was a super easy transaction but for the £1000 it cost me all in I’d have snapped that up from a shop in the U.K.

Probably even a bit more given the lack of faff (although buying from Japan was exactly zero faff) and potential ability to choose between a few and actually play what I was buying.

So I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing some decent MIJ tokais for sale in U.K. music shops too