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Vintage Yamahas - Is it possible to know how many of a given model were ACTUALLY made?


travisty

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I am wondering. Does Yamaha tell you if you ask? Do they even know?

 

Some of the 'limited edition' or custom models of the SG line had 'limits' of 200 (like the TSG) or 40 (like the SG-2004 (20 each of amber and gray) but the word in Japan is that only 59-60 of the TSG were made. And I know a couple of the SG-2004s have been modified. Then I saw a YEG-100A on a website (Yamaha advertised it before it was sold as being a limited edition of 20) for a dealer in Japan and dug around some more on the interwebicals (in both Japanese and English) and I can't find a single reference to anyone seeing or owning one other than that one example - which is now sold.

 

Any thoughts?

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FWIW, my question comes from standpoint of a forum lurker (and guitar noob) who quite likes the Yamaha sound (have been learning on a Yamaha SA2200, having found one locally for a steal, and I love it more and more each day). I also really like wood craft objects (I collect Japan wood craft/art) and high-end Japan-hand-made audio technology, so am intrigued by some of the solid-bodied guitars Yamaha made, and I am trying to learn more. I can read about each model on the web, but haven't found much info on how to differentiate announced LEs (and their limits) and how many actually got sold - because a lot of them were custom ordered jobbies.

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Yamaha has a serial number wizard on their website that gives some information about guitars. I've used it for their acoustics, I don't know if it will provide what you are looking for.

 

http://www.yamaha.com/apps/guitararchives/serialnumberwizard.asp

 

You can also try their customer support e-mail address at the bottom of that page.

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Unless they have it posted some place, its highly unlikely any Japanese company is going to make corporate information known to the public. I've worked for many Japanese manufacturers over the years and 99% of their employees aren't given access to any kinds of stats, schematics or anything else that could harm their company if it was leaked to the public or competition. They learned well from all the stupid mistakes American companies made giving their employees too much info that lead to all their trade secrets being stolen.

 

Say they had an instrument that was expected to sell a million a year and they only sold a few thousand because it sucked. They don't want their competition to know anything about their sales figures, especially if it winds up having defects. The example of Toyota cars having gas pedals sticking and winding up in law suits really made them super paranoid.

 

Not that a guitar would be dangerous, but they do make allot of electronic gear that could be dangerous if it were to have issues. Trying to get info on anything beyond what's published by most Japanese manufacturers just doesn't happen.

 

The serial number sequence will tell you how many were made in a month based on your serial number. Most are a three digit, so if they did the maximum of 999 and multiply that times 12 months you're looking at close to 20,000 a year and if they make that instrument for say 5 years that's close to 60,000. Even with that they tell you all serial numbers aren't accounted for and there may be counterfeiting involved.

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Unless they have it posted some place, its highly unlikely any Japanese company is going to make corporate information known to the public. I've worked for many Japanese manufacturers over the years and 99% of their employees aren't given access to any kinds of stats, schematics or anything else that could harm their company if it was leaked to the public or competition.

 

Say they had an instrument that was expected to sell a million a year and they only sold a few thousand because it sucked. They don't want people to know that. Even if it did sell well, they often have deals with all the other manufacturers not to make that information known. Unlike the US counter parts who have employees who blab about everything that their company does. You can see what the results of that are.

 

All those manufacturing secrets were hacked and are being done by low cost labor including Yamaha. Their guitars were bottom of the barrel when they first came out. If they lasted a year or two before they started warping up you were lucky. The only cheaper guitars were junk you bought from a sears mail order catalog. Little by little they took the profit they made and reinvested in improving their company. Now they make some of the better state of the art instruments and audio gear.

 

As you can probably guess I'm quite biased when it comes to imports. If I had my way I'd raise the tariffs up as high as they have them on our products from being sold. Then we would have sell on an equal playing field. Yea, you'd have allot of people screaming they can buy all their cheap import junk cheap but it would put people back to work hear building quality products again. I don't see it happening in my life time, but it should.

 

 

With all due respect (and I have great respect for your knowledge), I'm not sure you got your facts straight on earlier Yamahas. Even in the early days, they were not putting out junk or bottom of the barrel. As to japanese made Yamaha guitars of the last 40 years, they are the cream of the crop as far as build quality goes. And yes, many are limited run custom shop stuff that was never meant for the western market. Some are in the $10,000 ball park. (I won't even mention their concert classical lines where the sky is the limit)

 

My two japanese Yammies, an SA2200 and a rare Pacifica 904 (MIJ) are superlative instruments. A new SA2200 is about $2000 and, as you said, should cost more, but fact is, the way the buying public think and act, a better guitar for your buck but with an unsexy name on the headstock will not out sell the 'iconic' run -of-the-mill good enough guitar. My PAC904 was around $1200 in 2008 when it was discontinued. To get the same quality with Fender, you had to get a customshop and pay more than double the price. They were not available in USA but could be ordered in Canada.

 

People know the yamahas from outside Japan (Taiwan, indonesia, China) and those mass produced guitars define the brand in most people;s mind.

 

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Thanks all, and especially to Mr Freeman Keller for the link. I have been in contact with the home office customer support (in Japanese) through the customer service site and a long back-and-forth, and the answers were limited.

  1. they have no internal/official records of some of the limited edition models, including the YEG-100A.
  2. some of the very limited edition models had no serial numbers anywhere on the guitar apparently.
  3. asking any number of times in any number of ways, there was no answer to the question of
    • whether the advertised number of examples of a limited edition were always reached,
    • whether the sample model was made and advertised, with follow-on numbers being made to order,
    • or what happened to un-ordered examples within the limited edition run.

 

 

I'll have more data on the YEG-100A shortly. :^)

 

To WRGKMC: With all due respect to your guru status, after 20+ years of living in Japan and dealing with Japanese corporations, I find that companies which are in touch with their customers and make products with which their customers bond (high-end audio, cars/motorcycles, musical instruments, handmade craft of all sorts, etc) can be extremely forthcoming - ESPECIALLY when the product becomes 'vintage/historical'. The kind of customer who cares enough to love that old product, and care enough to ask about it is worth his weight in gold because they are the best form of advertising, and great old products like those create heritage/provenance/context for their modern efforts. Sometimes all it takes is asking the right question to the right person.

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With all due respect (and I have great respect for your knowledge), I'm not sure you got your facts straight on earlier Yamahas. Even in the early days, they were not putting out junk or bottom of the barrel. As to japanese made Yamaha guitars of the last 40 years, they are the cream of the crop as far as build quality goes. And yes, many are limited run custom shop stuff that was never meant for the western market. Some are in the $10,000 ball park. (I won't even mention their concert classical lines where the sky is the limit)

 

My two japanese Yammies, an SA2200 and a rare Pacifica 904 (MIJ) are superlative instruments. A new SA2200 is about $2000 and, as you said, should cost more, but fact is, the way the buying public think and act, a better guitar for your buck but with an unsexy name on the headstock will not out sell the 'iconic' run -of-the-mill good enough guitar. My PAC904 was around $1200 in 2008 when it was discontinued. To get the same quality with Fender, you had to get a customshop and pay more than double the price. They were not available in USA but could be ordered in Canada.

 

People know the yamahas from outside Japan (Taiwan, indonesia, China) and those mass produced guitars define the brand in most people;s mind.

 

Well you would have had to been guitarist back when those first acoustic guitars started being sold here in the US through music stores in the 1970's. In comparison to other acoustic makers, they were budget instruments sold for between $100 to $250 depending on the model. They were affordable for young students which was their target market. They looked good but unfortunately they were good for a few years before thay started warping up on you.

 

I have no idea what they may have sold overseas nor do I care how well they were rated in their home country. I'm talking about what thay were competing with here in the US.

 

Yamaha electrics didn't become popular in music stores until much later. Many of the electrics coming from Japan were lawsuit guitars and dealers were afraid to sell them or they would loose contracts with Gibson and Fender etc so you just didn't see those instruments around much. The quality then still didn't compare to the real thing were copying so why waste your money on something that was $100 cheaper.

 

The electrics weren't sold in the US in any great quantity till much later. The instruments you listed above were from the 2000's I believe so you are completely missing by point by about 30 years or more.

 

Yamaha has grown to be a well respected company over those years and do make quality instrument now. I just have no desire to buy one. I do have two of their cheap Yamahas that were given to me. The builds on them are bargain basement crap, even lower quality then Fender Squires which I consider a bottom baseline between garbage and something usable. I'm not comparing those to the better instruments they make either.

 

I realize the company has a whole range of instrument from beginner to pro now. The better ones compare with any other companies quality instruments. Again, I personally wouldn't buy one because I see nothing there that thrills me, that's all.

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Thanks all, and especially to Mr Freeman Keller for the link. I have been in contact with the home office customer support (in Japanese) through the customer service site and a long back-and-forth, and the answers were limited.

  1. they have no internal/official records of some of the limited edition models, including the YEG-100A.
  2. some of the very limited edition models had no serial numbers anywhere on the guitar apparently.
  3. asking any number of times in any number of ways, there was no answer to the question of
    • whether the advertised number of examples of a limited edition were always reached,
    • whether the sample model was made and advertised, with follow-on numbers being made to order,
    • or what happened to un-ordered examples within the limited edition run.

I'll have more data on the YEG-100A shortly. :^)

 

To WRGKMC: With all due respect to your guru status, after 20+ years of living in Japan and dealing with Japanese corporations, I find that companies which are in touch with their customers and make products with which their customers bond (high-end audio, cars/motorcycles, musical instruments, handmade craft of all sorts, etc) can be extremely forthcoming - ESPECIALLY when the product becomes 'vintage/historical'. The kind of customer who cares enough to love that old product, and care enough to ask about it is worth his weight in gold because they are the best form of advertising, and great old products like those create heritage/provenance/context for their modern efforts. Sometimes all it takes is asking the right question to the right person.

 

You can't ask the question nor understand the answers if you don't speak the language. But you should attempt to Google the answer the OP posted and you discover you will find no results besides a few corporate adds and forum stuff. Compare that with goggling specifics on a Gibson and you find every detail imaginable. I do realize the Japanese are a very humble people. I worked for their companies for many decades to realize this but I also dealt with their engineers long enough to know what kinds of questions they may answer and which ones they side step.

 

I cant count the times I'd ask an engineer a question and the only answer I'd get back was, "That was a good question" They didn't say they didn't know the answer, they didn't say they couldn't answer. You simply never got an answer.

 

That's pretty much the story dealing with their products here in the US. They may have good intentions and There may be butt loads of info out there in Japanese, but it does you no good if you don't speak or read that language. I'm sure they deal with those same issues in their country as well. There is language barriers between most countries that speak different languages so this is nothing new.

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When Santana released the "Moonflower" album in the mid 70s this picture "legitimized" Yamaha's solid body guitars.

 

8703858.jpg

 

A friend of mine had gone to the big city to buy a Les Paul but instead, came back with a Yamaha SG2000 which he had chosen "because it was a better guitar." After he got home he began having second thoughts but when he saw the guitar on the cover of my Santana album he felt much better about his choice.

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Santana used an Yamaha SG 175B for a few years there as part of an advertising endorsement for the new products. He moved to PRS a few years afterwards and they built a half dozen Santana models.

 

Many famous guitarists get gear endorsements. They can range from getting a discount, to wholesale cost or even free if you're a big enough star and they will even build custom models for you if it makes them money. This is often done by companies to draw in sales of their products and can take quite a bit of time to show results.

 

Back then there were no internet sales because the net didn't exist. Unless you lived in or close to a big city, it could take years for you to see the newest products in your local stores unless that dealer had a dealership and agreed to sell so many units. My stomping ground back in the 70's and 80's was the Jersey Shore, Asbury Park to Atlantic city mostly but did shows in the city occasionally. NY was only 70 miles from where I lived. There were at least a half dozen music stores in my area. Some were bigger then others and some were carrying newer products with the old brand names. ESP was beginning to take root back then. Kramer rose in the 80's to be real popular. There were a bunch of companies like Univox selling budget guitars, but there weren't pro stuff played by you working musicians much.

 

As a working performer back then full time, I just didn't see any Yamahas and due to the budget japan syndrome back then you would have to pay some musicians to play them. Like I said they may have been out thee they just weren't something popular yet. You'd see the acoustics all the time but you should realize, guitars were status symbols just like owning a Vet or a Camaro, musicians usually owned instruments that were cool then. Japanese guitars just hadn't become cool yet because the majority of instruments form the orient were toys. That stigma took quite a while and allot of effort on the builders to overcome. Of course companies like Fender scooted by making guitars in Japan selling in the US as a Made in US guitar brand for a long time hiding the fact they were being made overseas.

 

Again, I'd say it was likely the mid 80's when this began to change where musicians bought quality and paid less attention to the name brand. That's when the big explosion of imports really too hold. So again, maybe there were a few imports becoming popular but the market for them was still pretty small. Most of the imports, again were bought for beginners by parents as Christmas or birthday presents. Most of those kids who were serious would give a left nut for a Gibson or Fender Rickenbacker etc. (At lest here in the US) because that's what most major stars used and for good reason. They just made great instruments that everyone else was trying to copy.

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Thanks WRGKMC. Great color.

 

I think there was a similar 'issue' with most Japanese products in the 60s and 70s though most 'made in Japan' quality issues were ironed out through a cult-like obsession with quality assurance (the American statistician Mr Deming was ignored in the US and only started to deal with Japan in his 50s (in the 1950s) but he became a cult figure in Japan). In some cases, the profound difference in labor costs due to the structurally weak yen at the time (which started changing around the time Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard) actually made quality products 'too cheap to be good' and Japanese manufacturers - particularly in the electronics industries - responded by increasing the quality/cost and biding their time.

 

Time is the great equalizer - as the Swiss found out at the beginning of the 20th century when 'Swiss-made' was an epithet for poor quality watches, and as the Koreans have found out in the last several years as their electronics and cars have been accepted. So far, Deming's philosophies have not caught on in China (except at the Japanese and some extent Taiwanese manufacturers operating there) so the world may have a while before it accepts 'Made in China' as representing quality (though everyone's iPhones are made in China).

 

In any case, the 'home court advantage' helps the sale (unless there has been irreparable harm done in the meantime) in almost every market I have observed - US, continental Europe, Japan, Korea, even China (though in food this is changing), etc. Some of it is political. Some of it is 'good defense' by the home team.

 

As to language, I (the OP) actually was referring to having done my digging in Japanese. I speak/read/write Japanese and have 20+yrs experience trying to ''socially engineer' my way to more info in Japanese. Apart from the Japanese language internet searches, I also talked to the older guys at a bunch guitar stores selling used instruments in Tokyo when I was there a couple of weeks ago, and called a half dozen other dealers in vintage Yamahas throughout the rest of Japan (other than the 'Yamaha otaku' publications (like 'SG Graffiti which itself now goes for $200 or so on the used market), these guys are often the best source of information if you canvas a lot of them (people do that job because they love sharing their love of music/instruments, not to get rich)).

 

I couldn't find anyone who had ever seen one (except the store which sold it) though many/most knew of it from the 1987/88 brochure. Thought I'd ask here to see if any of the English-speaking 'Yamaha otaku' would know.

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Well you would have had to been guitarist back when those first acoustic guitars started being sold here in the US through music stores in the 1970's. In comparison to other acoustic makers, they were budget instruments sold for between $100 to $250 depending on the model. They were affordable for young students which was their target market. They looked good but unfortunately they were good for a few years before thay started warping up on you.

 

I have no idea what they may have sold overseas nor do I care how well they were rated in their home country. I'm talking about what thay were competing with here in the US.

 

Yamaha electrics didn't become popular in music stores until much later. Many of the electrics coming from Japan were lawsuit guitars and dealers were afraid to sell them or they would loose contracts with Gibson and Fender etc so you just didn't see those instruments around much. The quality then still didn't compare to the real thing were copying so why waste your money on something that was $100 cheaper.

 

The electrics weren't sold in the US in any great quantity till much later. The instruments you listed above were from the 2000's I believe so you are completely missing by point by about 30 years or more.

 

Yamaha has grown to be a well respected company over those years and do make quality instrument now. I just have no desire to buy one. I do have two of their cheap Yamahas that were given to me. The builds on them are bargain basement crap, even lower quality then Fender Squires which I consider a bottom baseline between garbage and something usable. I'm not comparing those to the better instruments they make either.

 

I realize the company has a whole range of instrument from beginner to pro now. The better ones compare with any other companies quality instruments. Again, I personally wouldn't buy one because I see nothing there that thrills me, that's all.

 

 

A fellow forumite, Zenbu, has Yamaha acoustics from the 50's that are , according to his excellent judgement, very fine. Those would have been made at the same time as your two crappy Yamahas but they both reflect two of the many sides of Yamaha as a manufacturer. It's not about what they could do but what they decided to put out there to cater to all kinds of customers. From the cheapest (and uninspiring) instruments to fabulous guitar that,few of us ever held in ours hands to judge.

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A fellow forumite, Zenbu, has Yamaha acoustics from the 50's that are , according to his excellent judgment, very fine. Those would have been made at the same time as your two crappy Yamahas but they both reflect two of the many sides of Yamaha as a manufacturer. It's not about what they could do but what they decided to put out there to cater to all kinds of customers. From the cheapest (and uninspiring) instruments to fabulous guitar that, few of us ever held in ours hands to judge.

 

Yea, you cant rule out the tariffs involved during those years either. I'm no expert but the Import/export laws have changed allot over the years and what they sold had to be inexpensive for music store to sell them and still turn a profit. The other big seller which were being sold was the Epiphone line of acoustics which were pretty good guitars. Many more of those did survive through the years, probably because Epiphone was a much older company. It was bought by Gibson in the 60's but the quality of the build was still pretty good during those years. Another big brand was the Suzuki guitars. I actually bought a Suzuki 12 string over a Yamaha back in 1970.

 

It lasted maybe 3~4 years tuned to D tuning. The store where I bought it was owned by guy who specialized in acoustics and sold instruments to all the big acoustic stars back then like James Taylor, Paul Stookey for Peter Paul and Mary, and a whole list of famous musicians. He was one of the few dealers who would go to the Martin factory and hand select woods for custom builds so all the big musicians would go to him for the best acoustic guitars. It was a local store for me and I went there to buy my first real guitar at 9 years old. I took lessons there for a few months to learn how to finger pick stuff too.

 

When I decided to buy an acoustic he selected the Suzuki out of all the budget guitars and had me tune it to below concert pitch. He told me it would be better for the instrument and he was dead on right. Even tuned below pitch the neck eventually warped up on me and within 5 years it became completely unplayable. The guitar looked great, and it did sound really good, but the wood just wasn't as good. Period. An American guitar bout in the same price range would be more likely to survive the climate and humidity, at least in the areas I've lived in.

 

Electrics then, weren't that expensive. I bout all the 60"s guitars I wanted for a couple of hundred bucks. 60"s guitars in the 70's were just used guitars. They didn't have the insane prices they do now. Even the New Les Paul Gold top Deluxe I bought then was only $350. Why would you even buy an import when you can buy top of the line for $100 more?

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I've owned and used a lot of Yamaha gear over the years including guitars.

 

Sometimes I wonder why they discontinue certain models such as the DG series of guitar amplifiers but no one can argue with their success as an instrument manufacturer.

 

I've had a DG80-112 since they first came out 15 years ago. It is the best amp I have ever had and it has required absolutely zero maintenance. When I think about what I spent on tubes for the Twin Reverb I used for the 15 years before that, the DG80 has paid for itself several times.

 

It was the mid-late 70s when I discovered just how good the Japanese guitars were getting. A friend of mine showed up with an Ibanez Artist that blew me away. I played a Yamaha Image Standard (a.k.a. Yamaha MSG) for several years. It was a fabulous guitar and they stopped making those too.

 

Before CNC machines were used in the manufacture of guitars, some of the cheap ones would not play in tune because the frets were in the wrong place. I always recommended Yamaha guitars to my students because fret placement was never an issue with even the cheapest of their models.

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When I decided to buy an acoustic he selected the Suzuki out of all the budget guitars and had me tune it to below concert pitch. He told me it would be better for the instrument and he was dead on right. Even tuned below pitch the neck eventually warped up on me and within 5 years it became completely unplayable. The guitar looked great, and it did sound really good, but the wood just wasn't as good. Period. An American guitar bout in the same price range would be more likely to survive the climate and humidity, at least in the areas I've lived in.

 

You should have bought a Yamaha instead of a Suzuki. :)

 

Electrics then, weren't that expensive. I bout all the 60"s guitars I wanted for a couple of hundred bucks. 60"s guitars in the 70's were just used guitars. They didn't have the insane prices they do now. Even the New Les Paul Gold top Deluxe I bought then was only $350. Why would you even buy an import when you can buy top of the line for $100 more?

 

Back then $100 was more than a weeks wages for a lot of people and much of the stuff in the grocery stores cost less than one dollar. I remember the first time I had to pay a whole dollar for a litre of milk and a loaf of bread.

 

 

I bought a '63 strat for $500 in 1978. I gave it to a friend and he ended up selling it for $4500. He also answered an ad in the paper, that I saw too but did not act on it, and wound up getting a 1954 strat for $600. The original owner had died and his wife called the local music store and asked how much a Fender Stratocaster cost.

 

 

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