From the Past #2: Early Bacchus Live Road / Vintage Series

This Bacchus Live Road is the oldest one I have seen up close. There are a few things that make it different from the later Vintage Series models including lack of serial number and a medium offset tenon. I am not sure if it is a BLS-95 or earlier but my understanding is that the BLS-120s onward would have had a long tenon and generally had serial numbers. 

Two-piece maple top with a 1-piece mahogany back. The guitar was finished in lacquer.

I switched the larger Gotoh bridge for a Tokiwa vintage style ABR.

Decent fretboard wood with some nice looking inlay patterns. This had jumbo frets unlike the later BLS-59 guitars.

You can see some of the chips and scratches on the headstock but there was no headstock finish clouding like with some of the later BLS-120 models.

 Medium offset tenon.

From the past #1: Epiphone Japan Lacquer Series SG

Note the LQ series Epiphone script

Time to look back at some (maybe all?) of the guitars I have had in the past few years.

This is the guitar that started me down the slippery slope of road MIJ guitars. I got this in early January 2008 at Ikebe music in Shibuya. I had seen a few of these online at great prices but they were clearing these out as they do in Japan with stuff that doesn't sell quickly enough.

The LQ series had much thicker necks than the Elite/Elitists and the older domestic Japanese Epiphone yet this one was well balanced with no "neck dive".

I used this for a few years when I was in a gigging band. Nice Fujigen construction with great feel and stable tuning. The pickups were good generic PAF copies from Fujigen. I ended up putting in some Seth Lovers in which suited the guitar a lot better.

The LQ models have a thin lacquer finish which makes them lighter and also makes them easy to damage. I am not sure what kind of lacquer it is as I never tested it but suspect it is either thin nitro or acrylic or a mix of the two.

I ended up with a few of SGs at one point including an amazing Bacchus Vintage Series SG so sold the LQ.  No regrets but I always keep an eye out for more LQ series guitars as they are under appreciated and can usually be had for a bargain.

Epiphone Japan LQ Series SG

Not too much damage for a couple years of gigs and rehearsals

Thin finish shows pick scratches easily

List price 99,750 yen

Greco SA-700 クランチ+ブースト Whipping Post

Great demo here of a rare 1982 Greco SA-700 made to 1981 Super Real specs. This model had a coil tap toggle switch.

This is from a store in Japan called Heavy Gauge Guitars  in Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture with some interesting guitars and great video demos.

Disclaimer: No association in any way with Aoyama Oyaji.

Headway Acoustic from the 80's: HD-510D

I don't know much about old Japanese acoustics. I bought a new Yamaha jumbo in the 1990's and a Takamine jumbo in 2009 but they were brand new guitars. Since I was getting into old Japanese electrics I also wanted to find a nice vintage Japanese acoustic. Ochanomizu is a great place to try out different guitars so off I went to Shimokura Second Hands in Ochanomizu in April 2012.

I wanted to get a nice example of a vintage Japanese acoustic. Choosing one is not an easy task with so many fine examples of Yamaha, Tokai Cat's Eyes, Morris, K. and S. Yairi models around to name but a few of the more common brands. Old acoustics also are very susceptible to the effects of temperature and humidity. In Japan that means that acoustic guitars can often come with neck and body issues. In any case, Shimokura has some great techs and as far as I have seen they always set up each guitar as well as possible and price them according to their condition.

I tried a few Morris and Cat's Eyes models in the store. I cannot remember the models but I was interested in some of the higher end Martin copies with extra bling such as larger inlays and purfing. Most of these had fairly thin necks and didn't really have much projection or volume. I am sure that there are excellent examples of these guitars somewhere but on that day I didn't find anything that spoke to me. They did have a Headway guitar there that day and that was the last guitar I tried. It was clearly the one for me as it had a very fat neck and was by far the loudest guitar of the ones I had tried. Since I had a few Bacchus examples and knew that the Headway brand was also from Deviser I was pretty comfortable taking this one home.

As with most Deviser products the serial numbers don't have any information about the year of production. I don't know the exact manufacturing year but was told it was from the early 1980's. Internet searches show other HD-510 models from the 1980's so that is probably correct.
Other HD models are still offered from time to time today by Headway. I am not sure what the modern equivalent would be as the 500 level HD-501 model listed on the Deviser site is a custom model listing in the 300,000 yen plus range.

I'm interested in learning more about old Headway guitars so please let me know if you have an old Headway acoustic.

Details: Solid spruce top, laminate rosewood back and sides, ebony fingerboard and bridge, waffleback tuners, no truss rod.

Nothing more to add but some pictures below:

New Guitar: 32-year old Greco EG59-85

Early Mint Collection "Super Real" headstock

Special setting?

Before

After

Another Mint Collection arrived today from Japan. Like the first Mint Collection I owned, it is the mid-range EG59-85 model. From Yahoo Auction photos it was hard to tell the condition of this 32 year old guitar but after some clean up and rearranging of parts (see the original pickups and rings on the right!)it looks close to new. 


The board was extremely dry so some lemon oil and elbow grease had things looking much better.

The MC Grecos I have had from this time have ranged in weight from 3.7 kg to 4.55 kg. This one is an easy to handle 4.2 kg. The seam on the 2-piece back is hard to find but it is there if you look closely.

I think that the inlays they used on the early 1982 Les Paul Standard copies look much better than the previous acrylic ones (non-MOP models) used from 1980-1981. The colour is nicer and does a better job of mimicking the inlays on the the original bursts. 








The EG59-85 has jumbo frets and nice fret edge binding that is faithful to the way it was done on some of the original bursts. 

Fret-edge binding detail

The tuner buttons are also a nice touch with the marbled look which Gibson only recently introduced on their historic models. 

I like the Double Trick pickups a lot. They are a bit hotter than DRY1982s from my experience but once they are adjusted properly (to my taste anyway)they remind me of a nice Alnico 2 pickup with good double tones. Perhaps a good comparison is Classic 57s. Hard to say because pickups can be very subjective. In any case, they have their own thing going on and I find they are more complex than the ceramic Screamin1982s. Use that tone knob on the bridge though as the bridge has some high end bite to it. The neck is nice and buttery like Duane's tone on those old Allman Brother's albums.

Double Trick

Not much to add here except some pictures as below of this Mint Collection Super Real made by Fujigen Gakki in 1982 for the Kanda Shokai company.