Lighting and Wood: Tokai LS-80

Old Tokai LS-80s are a real pleasure to play and photograph. This particular one is an early one from 1978 with mother of pearl fretboard inlays and chrome plated hardware.

It was a sunny winter day here in Tokyo with the sun coming in hard through the windows. The top of the LS really caught flame and revealed the fine figuring of the old maple.   

A very clean headstock with the early pearloid tuning pegs.

A more subdued look in the shade.

Not your typical back grain here on the 1-piece mahogany.

Time machine Greco Spacey Sound SE-500 - D818100

A lot was going right on the Fujigen line to put out this combination of wood, metal and plastic back in April 1981. Aoyama Oyaji was just in Grade 6 back then and probably had never seen an electric guitar in person when Kenji Oyama was putting this together.

What happened here with the 2-piece ash body matched with a thick '54 style neck with some decent flame? I thought SE-500s were made with leftovers from the woodpile. It sounds like the specs of an SE-600 or even SE-800 aside from the thin poly, which feels pretty close to the nitro finishes they used back then anyway. I'll put it down to the Japanese work ethic at the time and some luck in whatever Kenji had on the woodpile at the time.

A number was stamped on bodies according to the model. Here the "5" stamp was used for this SE-500. If you think you might have a partscaster Greco check the neck pocket for the stamp.

This must have been stored in a nice place with air conditioning as there is pretty much no tarnishing or oxidation at all. Really "Mint" condition aside from a small bump on the upper back side.

It is also a light guitar at 3.4 kg which is pretty much perfect for my tastes. It has great sustain and the Excel pickups are wonderful strat replicas no matter what anyone says. Here are a few more pictures:

Time machine Greco Spacey Sound SE-500 - D818100

A lot was going right on the Fujigen line to put out this combination of wood, metal and plastic back in April 1981. Aoyama Oyaji was just in Grade 6 back then and probably had never seen an electric guitar in person when Kenji Oyama was putting this together.

What happened here with the 2-piece ash body matched with a thick '54 style neck with some decent flame? I thought SE-500s were made with leftovers from the woodpile. It sounds like an SE-600 or even SE-800 aside from the thin poly which feels pretty close to the nitro finishes they used back then anyway. I'll put it down to the Japanese work ethic at the time and some luck in whatever Kenji had on the woodpile at the time.

A number was stamped on bodies according to the model. Here the "5" stamp was used for this SE-500 If you think you have a partscaster Greco check the neck pocket for the stamp.

This must have been stored in a nice place with air conditioning as there is pretty much no tarnishing or oxidation at all. Really "Mint" condition aside from a small bump on the upper back side.

It is also a light guitar at 3.4 kg which is pretty much perfect for my tastes. It has great sustain and the Excel pickups are wonderful strat replicas no matter what anyone says. Here are a few more pictures:

THUMB Acoustic by Terada

Oyaji has been in Japan for a few days enjoying the nice weather before the summer heat hits. A tour of the main guitar stores in the Tokyo area was uneventful with very few interesting old Japanese guitars up for sale. Yesterday however at the Yokohama Ishibashi there was something. An old acoustic with some cloudy lacquer and THUMB in large round font like an old Martin.

Thumb headstock

Martin headstock font

It was labelled as "Junk" since the high E string sits low in the nut and buzzes on the first fret in open position. Other than that the action was perfect and there were no fatal body blows to worry about. Since it came with a hard case it was hard to say no to this oddball so now I am have a new Thumb. I always wanted an acoustic in this Martin style but never found one that was affordable or sounded good. A trip to Ray's Guitar Spa in Singapore should sort out the nut and then it will be good to go.

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: