what you think of " TOKAI " honestly?

[VINTAGE JOE]

hello everyone!

i have some questions today so tell me please!

i am a big gtr mania in japan.

my questions for you guys are ......

@ TOKAI is a legendary company after all?
in the world of the quality replica gtrs?

this seems to be true for some people and
NOT for others in japan as i have heard.

to me, TOKAI is legendary. they are the COPIES
but the REPLICA quality OFTEN!

what you think personally?
and in your country generally?
TOKAI is special or not?

@ which other japanese brands are
as great quality as TOKAI you think?

i personally think GRECO and BACCHUS
and NAVIGATOR are as good as TOKAI.

@ do you guys wish to have the QUALITY gtrs
like TOKAI and OTHERS if easily possible?

@ how about the american guys here?
after your gibson/fender,
you want TOKAI/others?

THANKS VERY MUCH!

VINTAGE JOE from japan

[VINTAGE JOE]

" TOKAI " means the EAST-SEA. or the region name of japan

where the TOKAI COMPANY is located. its called the tokai region.

TOKAI is located in the city of HAMAMATSU where is in between

of NAGOYA~TOKYO. this city is very famous for the musical instruments

manufacturings and others. YAMAHA and more others are located here.

[VINTAGE JOE]

http://www1.odn.ne.jp/tokaigakki/index.html

TOKAI JAPAN

[BluesHawk]

Hi, Joe. Thanks for the Tokai information.

I don't know a lot about the Tokai Company, its history, or the guitars it produced over the years. I see Tokai guitars in lots of shops here in the USA....from Atlanta to Clearwater to San Francisco. So they have been popular here for many years, I think mainly in the 1960s and 1970s when we had a guitar boom.

These older Tokai's are now regarded here as low-cost collectable guitars. And some musician's play them because they're different. Dan Auerbach with The Black Keys has a few I think. I don't think Tokai's are prized as high quality guitars here, but I may be wrong about that.

Sorry I can't offer more but thanks for your enthusiasm. Maybe we'll get a good discussion going here.

[westli]

The quality of Tokais varied all over the place. Some were pretty good guitars, some could be made into pretty good guitars, some were good firewood.

Personally, I think a good-playing original-design Tokai would be cool to have. I have no interest in their copies. But I can't speak for the rest of the U.S.

There are a lot of reasons why someone would want a Tokai: to collect; because they had one just like it as a kid; because they're cool; sometimes they are cheap; etc.

There is usually only one reason why someone would not want a Tokai: they think they are all junk (or they don't need another guitar).

[VINTAGE JOE]

thank you very much for your good opinions here.

its interesting and i see a good picture of TOKAI in usa now.

the euro & other situations are probably different somehow

so i hope for more opinions here. lets talk about TOKAI !!!!!

anyways, thanks and g'day!

joe japan

[BluesHawk]

I'm now in Stuttgart and see that Tokai is strong here. More later...

[BluesHawk]

Last weekend I visited Lupo's Rockshop at Rotestrasse 32, 70197 Stuttgart, Deutschland. I noticed lots of good lookin, brand new Tokai's for sale there.

Zoran is the owner of the Rockshop. We were talkin about an adjustment to my guitar when I saw five old axes hangin on the wall and asked him about "these vintage guitars...".

He said, "Those are new" and I did a double-take... When I looked closer and saw the Benzville name on them I asked who makes them and Zoran humbly said, "I do". The very best looking relics I've seen...completely fooled me, even looking close-up I could have sworn these are true vintage axes. And they're excellent players.

BTW, Zoran looked at the adjustment I wanted him to make on my bridge and in 30 seconds he pointed out that I needed my neck re-set. I could see exactly how he diagnosed the problem (thank goodness it's a bolt-on). Zoran's a real pro and I'm glad I found him.

Check it out: www.benzville-guitars.de

And Tokai seems to be doin okay in Germany, Joe.

[daan]

Honestly I never even heard of Tokai until I first started going to guitar websites. Of course I grew up in the rural midwest (hours away from any real music stores) but I can tell you nobody in the general area I'm from had one back in the late 70's early 80's. I've handled some of their guitars recently, and they are nice guitars. Anything from Asia got a really bad reputation back when I was growing up because the only Asian guitars that showed up where I was were the absolute cheapest ones. So people seemed to lump any MIJ/MIK guitars together wether they were good or not. Not a good thing because I know I passed up some very nice guitars when I was younger because of that bias, and I'm really regretting it now.

And I never knew that about the Tokai name, thanks for educating me/us!

[VINTAGE JOE]

http://www.hibikimusic.co.jp/brand/tokai/index.html

the TOKAI-HIBIKI HLS special series!

HIBIKI is a big distributor of many famous brands in japan

and they order their special tokai guitars from TOKAI.

HLS means HIBIKI LS or HIBIKI LES PAUL or (HISTORIC SERIES)

when a tokai love rock model # is saying LS then its a regular tokai.

but when it says HLS then its a HIBIKI-TOKAI special limited editions.

HIBIKI in japanese means " RESONANCE " of the tone, sound. COOL!

[BluesHawk]

[VINTAGE JOE]

http://www.theguitarshop.jp/catalogue/catalogue.html

thanks good guys here! these are the recent tokai-japan catalogs

from 2010~2012. you see many models here and they are all well made.

there are MIJ & MIC & maybe MIK too in the current tokai products.

some of the high models use brazillian rosewood & honduran mahogany.

gibson is the gibson and the usa is the gibson country but its not bad to

have some others like there are many car brands in usa today beside MIA.

certainly the japanese cars are important in the american life today?

to save the gas $ and for the dependability and all? so tokai & others are ok too!

joe japan

[cheepaxes]

I'm late to the discussion but here are my thoughts:

I first heard of Tokai in the '80s. They had a reputation for making copies of Fenders and Gibsons that were as good or better than F & G were making at the time. I had a friend who owned a Tokai Tele and he liked it a lot.

These days I play a lot of bass. My main bass is a gold '80s Tokai APB-57, which is their copy of a '57 P-bass. I bought it because my old main bass -- a '78 American Fender P -- was too heavy anymore. I think the Tokai is as good as the Fender and weighs about 8.5lbs compared to about 12lbs for the '78.

See picture here: http://www.tokairegistry.com/images/cat ... ric_p5.jpg

[VINTAGE JOE]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkai_region

" TOKAI " in japanese, means the tokai-region of the japan main island.

the tokai guitar conpanny is located in HAMAMATSU, where many of

other japanese instruments makers & others are located. yamaha is

also one of them in hamamatsu. the japanese word " TOKAI " itself

means THE EAST-SEA also. japan is the east of the world by the sea.

TOKAI is since 1947 and their motto is QUALITY BEFORE QUANTITY.

TOKAI makes the copies/replicas but they are a great quality company!

[VINTAGE JOE]

http://www.theguitarshop.jp/

THE TOKAI COMPANY DIRECT SHOP here.

so much infomations here and hope you understand!