I have some books on old MIJ guitars and get my wife to translate parts every now and then, and as far back as the mid/late 50s Yamaha was exporting 3 models of their Dynamics...#30, 50 and 70...very similar except for rosettes and top inlays, otherwise all solid wood and not cheap by the standards of those days, some retailed for 6 weeks wages. The exports are easily I.D.`d by the arched Yamaha logo on the headstock, the domestics have the logo running straight across the headstock. Anyways, complaints of cracked tops on those first exports led Yamaha to develop laminates, the S series Dynamics being the first, then the two models of light green labels, then the red labels, which it seems everybody is after these days while completely ignoring the all solid wood Dynamics, while Yamaha exported three models, there were many domestic Dynamic models.
heres a 1950 Kiso-Suzuki I just got recently, a real beauty if I do say so myself...solid top and back, not sure of the sides...
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i198/ ... uki093.jpg
my 1948 Suziki nylon string...
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i198/ ... 948011.jpg
heres my oldest Dynamic, early `50s, got it a few months ago on line here. It`s one of the export #50s, even though these are solid maple, they have very deep voices, some guys here string them with steels because of the metal winding posts but I think they sound better with nylons...
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i198/ ... son095.jpg
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i198/ ... son093.jpg