I NEED YOUR OPINIONS!!!

[TOKAI JOE]

8) the official catalogs aint BS, what r u sayin man?
the catalogs are the company's official statements
so their products follow them usually all the way.
however things change sometimes at the factory
or by the spec changes so the products may be
affected. i sure dont doubt if there are few units
of the model that are different a bit from the official
avarage models coz sometimes for some reasons
they do make those inconsistent ones especially
on the early units. this is very popular in the gtr business
i think. we shouldnt start talking on this too deep coz
u know how it ends up often. i dont this time.



8) my tokai man was always saying that ls120 had the laminate.

What I am saying is, just because a catalog states one thing does not mean that it will "always" be the gospel truth, therefore, "catologs are BS."

If only one example of a Brazilian rosewood WIDGET existed when the WIDGET catalog states that WIDGETs are made from Indian rosewood, then the catalog would be technically wrong, correct?

........................................

8) i think u r taking it all reversed.

most of them (catalog) vs som of them (exceptions by som)

when its mostly all correct or almost all correct then not BS.
BS is mostly made up by BS or all made by BS correct?

u know a few exceptions of anything dont make them any different
from what they are generally. nothing is perfect so there will be always
few minor exceptions by some reasons. its the nature of the things......





8) j.

 

[MIJvintage]

the below sounds pretty cut & dried to my ears .................

"hey alan you sound wrong again here and dont need to tell me all
these spec things. i know the basic well and can read all the catalogs
so ok?.........anyways you sound wrong here again so let me correct
you a bit. its hard to know the truth often when the proofs are not
many. so dont worry. you aint only one ofcourse. we all are often.


@ i see no info of ls120 on the infos you left here.

@ the ls120 has the laminated top and the 1981 catalog says so!"


Any member here should be allowing for a few exceptions :wink:

 

[leadguitar_323]

I have also noticed that catalogues for different countries quite often have some different models specific to that market, then you have custom orders, it doesn,t make it easy to identify some models. Hi Joe, i have also seen a few solid top 120's, mainly pre 1980.

Mick

 

[TOKAI JOE]

the below sounds pretty cut & dried to my ears .................

"hey alan you sound wrong again here and dont need to tell me all
these spec things. i know the basic well and can read all the catalogs
so ok?.........anyways you sound wrong here again so let me correct
you a bit. its hard to know the truth often when the proofs are not
many. so dont worry. you aint only one ofcourse. we all are often.


@ i see no info of ls120 on the infos you left here.

@ the ls120 has the laminated top and the 1981 catalog says so!"


Any member here should be allowing for a few exceptions :wink:

8) sorry me and him had a xxxx before so. anyways kinda a joke
between me and him. he can do the same to me always.
sorry guys. never do it again. alan i hate you and i know
you hate me!!!!!!!!! thats ok! keep on rockin man! joe.

 

[Cali Girl]

I would trust my own eyes and the experience of the people who handle lots of these guitars over the catalogs. LS-120 was in production before it appeared in the 1981 catalog, yes?

 

[TOKAI JOE]

when there is a group of people called "good people"
which is made by 100 persons. when only 3 are bad
ones then should we stop calling them "good people"?
they are still the same a group of people called
"good people" only just 3 happened to be bad actually.
the basic nature of this group of people doesnt change
just only 3 exceptions existed. not super technically
we are talking about the word but the reality situations
included. isnt this how we use our languages and see?
comprehensive ways? anyways its ok. no more.



8)

 

[TOKAI JOE]

I would trust my own eyes and the experience of the people who handle lots of these guitars over the catalogs. LS-120 was in production before it appeared in the 1981 catalog, yes?

8) my tokaiman mr.furuhashi told me before that tokai's laminates then
were super thin but they are real laminate unlike the photoflame.
its thickness is like less than 1mm or som if i remember what he
said correctly now. they used some lazer cutter thing to do that.
hunter philly bob from this forum has the ls80 from 1983 and
that gtr we first thought it was the ls150 the export usa edition
coz no matter how closely bob checked the laminate seem
he couldnt see it. so we ended up the conclusion its the ls150
but later he found out it was actually the laminate so it was
ls80 instead. he can tell you more about it if you ask him.
i ask mr.furuhashi again about those things someday.





8) tokai joe.

 

[TOKAI JOE]

I would trust my own eyes and the experience of the people who handle lots of these guitars over the catalogs. LS-120 was in production before it appeared in the 1981 catalog, yes?

hello mick. its been super nice weather around here lately
in the tokyo area. just that flu thing is now starting to get
much worse in the osaka area. people there are all very
worried. got the catalog pack yet? hope u luv em! .....j

 

[JVsearch]

There's a question that has to be asked about the vintage LP - does it need a re-fret? That's often a deal breaker for me because a good re-fret (where the fret levelling is done under tension) is expensive.

 

[JohnA]

8) both are too good very hard to choose!

1979- ls120........

-vintage feel everywhere.
-yet laminated top.
-its a great japanese vintage.
.

An LS120 Reborn has a solid top

8) r u super sure on this johnA? it doesnt really count if only
very few early units had the solid figured top when all the
rest, the actual productions had the laminated top like
they are and tokai officially left the spec info for it.
i dont know for sure. maybe only 1980 but not 1981......

I haven't seen a lot of LS120's but the two I own (one '70 and one '82) are both solid, I'll post some pics later this evening.

Where's Villager and Togps when you need them, those two have probably seen more LS120's then most of the rest of us put together

 

[villager]

LS-120 have BOTH solid and laminate tops, I have examples from 79/80 and 81 love rocks, some solid, some laminate, in my experience there seem to be more solid tops than laminate tops, but 100% sure both exist in this date range.

this has been debated to death before...

BOTH exist..

 

[Mick51]

LS-120 have BOTH solid and laminate tops, I have examples from 79/80 and 81 love rocks, some solid, some laminate, in my experience there seem to be more solid tops than laminate tops, but 100% sure both exist in this date range.

this has been debated to death before...

BOTH exist..

I have to agree with Villager: It sounds great, it plays great, who cares.

There must be two dozen folks on this forum who own, or have owned, Greco EGF-1200 Super Real. Never a peep that it's "only" a laminate top.

Kudos to the Japanese luthiers who built these fine instruments almost 30 years ago. Their dedication to quality is what keeps us talking about the guitars so many years later.

 

[AlanN]

Ah, sweet - didn't know that. Thanks Mark, Mick & Joe.

 

[ochay]

Tokai Joe-
Your saying all 1981 LS120's have laminate tops? How can you tell?

 

[TOKAI JOE]

LS-120 have BOTH solid and laminate tops, I have examples from 79/80 and 81 love rocks, some solid, some laminate, in my experience there seem to be more solid tops than laminate tops, but 100% sure both exist in this date range.

this has been debated to death before...

BOTH exist..

8) hey villager do you have the pics of them that can be the proofs?
how thick are they, the laminated part? i did my best this time
but not completely sure about it yet. not talking about the exceptions
but in general. for most of the units.........

 

[TOKAI JOE]

8) hello tokai joe here again.....



since i left those infos about LS120 the other day
i felt sometimes it was not maybe good enough
to get close to the truth yet. dont think i could or
we could coz this is a kinda tough one to proove
perfectly. the original spec LS120 was only available
for a few years and so not much official proofs seem
available today anywhere very clearly. i did more
research and tried to recall what the tokaiman told me
a few years ago. i even emailed him again this time
but no reply coming back. he has been no available
lately for some unknown reasons so the last few emails
of mine to him were all not coming back. mick heard
a rumor somewhere that he could be deeply ill lately
or something. maybe so. too bad but anyways we try
here about the LS120 as much as we could w/o
the ugly fights. i did my small best here but couldnt
proove it absolutelly really so hope someday the truth
will be shown to the world officially. LS120 good luck!


@ the tokaiman very clearly said that the original LS120s
are the laminated top guitars. this was really clear.
many times.


@ he said that tokai had/used the press machine back then
that press the thin canadian sycamore maple laminates
so hard to super thin like by a few tons of the pressure.
in the end the laminate will be really thin like 1mm or 2mm
or that thin thickness its like just really a hard paper sheet
than a thin sheet of wood. i personaly couldnt believe this
story when he told me coz it just sounded so thin.
what 1mm? 2mm? i was thinking that the laminated top
is always/usually like an inch thickness or so. and i guess
this is how everyone is assuming it, right? not true.
the good laminate reality was, actually skin deep.


@ i bought a greco egf850 for "micdal" here a few years ago and
this gtr was originally in very **** condition. too many scratchs
and many cracks and in some part of the upper body the laminate
was peeled off. i clearly saw it like 5cm long along the body binding
and it was only really 1mm or so thickness. i was super suprised
then but the truth was the truth and there i was seeing it really.
the tokaiman said that in those days japanese company already
had this kind of skill at their factory and it was really one of
japanese secret weapon things to them. using the lazer cutter
or something super high tech and cutting it, pressed to 1mm or 2mm.
then glued it on the body by the super press machine giving
tons of the pressures onto the guitar body woods. sounded
so unreal but its true and if you ever actually see the peeled off
body laminates you just will/have to be agreed. so this was it
never "photoflame" on them. about the golden era japanese gtrs.


@ so first they cut the sheet of wood to pretty thin i guess.
then they press it so hard so heavy then the final wood sheet
is only 1mm or so. this super hardened canadian sycamore wood
sheet will be the laminates for all the laminated top models.
not only tokai but all the other companies were doing this way
most likely already back in the early 80s. and if we seriouslly
remember, gibson es335 have the maple 3 layer laminated body.
i had gibson 335s twice before so i saw them super sure then.
the body laminate is only maybe 3-4mm? and it consists of 3 layers?
each layer is only about 1mm or 1.5mm? so this is how thin
the laminate wood sheet world is. so after all, if we couldnt see
any laminate wood glued lines really on your laminated gtrs
isnt it normal? its there boys. in between the top finish and
the bottom solid wood! who are we really talking and insisting
and fighting all the time who knows better and so who wins?
we are just all the hobby guitarists whom dont know much.
and its our stupid ugly man behavior that fighting after
showing off the mini guitar knowledge of ours everytime?
we should know better how stupid and ugly we become here
sometimes. anyways the laminates are only skin deep so
it shocks you when you find out about it.
"unreal can be only skin deep?"
maybe thats so true.... a message from god?............................


@ so no strange if your vintage ls120 seems to have no laminate on it.


@ the ls120 seems to be born in 1980 then for the first 2 years they had
the laminated top. when tokai began to make some spec changes on
som of the good models in 1982. ls120 then finally got the solid figured
top. the flame tops were becoming very popular among the guitarists
around that time and tokai was selling a lot of gtrs then. from 1982
many models got new changes like the laminated figured top for ls80
in 1983 and in 1984, ls80 got 2 piece back and ls60 got 3 piece back....
is it 1982/3 that tokai introduced their 57 PAF pickups?.....................
it was the changing time for tokai both for good and bad. around 1983.


@ ask "hunter" bob here about this laminate matter. he has the 1983 ls80
that we first thought it was ls150. coz no matter how many million times
bob checked it he couldnt see it. but later he found it and then he says
its just a good old beautiful 1983 ls80 w/laminate top. really i tried to
see his pics many times lookin so close when there isnt actually a very
clear visible line. i still remember that between i and him. many emails
between philadelphia and japan.



@ a little history here.....from the catalogs. som wrong possibly.

1977....only ls50/60/80/100
1979....ls150/200/120 added.
1981....ls50/60/80/100/120/150/200.





8) tokai joe.