A Hat Trick: Martin Tele by Tokai Japan

[zenbu]

I`ve got some old MIJs with cases that look like that...minus the riveted plate though. They`re holding out very well so far. I like to wrap a bandana around the handle...makes them more comfortable to carry.

[guitarcapo]

I have a banjo that was made in Asia for Martin in the 70's. The label reads "Masterpiece"

 

It's pretty decent quality. Hard to say anything about the tone. All banjos sound the same.

[AL30]

Wow that thing looks a heck of a lot like an Ampeg Heavy Stud. I wonder if it's the same guitar with a different name on the headstock?

 

AL

[headless]

 

Those Martin Stingers came out of the same factory in Korea that made Hondo guitars. The Matsumoku typical features in the Martin distributed Sigma "Deluxe Tele" are the headstock, shape of the fingerboard, tuners, inlays...maybe there was some sort of connection to whatever Tokai was at the time as Japanese guitar manufacturing was highly intertwined, but the build characteristics of that guitar are tells. And no one with a brain would have dropped $450 on one in 1976, regardless of what they might claim on line 33 years later. There is a lot of nonsense that gets mentioned on the web...as a cranky old person who was around at the time and still remembers- the 70s were pretty fun in A2, MI- sometimes you just have to pipe up and say...uh, no, that's not quite right.

 

 

 

As a geezer, and one who actually purchased a guitar or two in 1976, I would find it hard to imagine that anyone would have spent that kind of money on the guitar pictured.

 

Perhaps if they had thrown a used-car in the deal, but not that guitar alone.

[billy budapest]

Huh! I never heard of an Ampeg Heavy Stud, but sure enough - here it is and it is indeed identical (case too!) except, of course, for the headstock:

 

http://www.guitar-museum.com/guitar-41698-Ampeg-Heavy-stud