Tokai Lawsuit / impound - the facts

[iainblack]

Folks just bought Tony Bacon's new Squier book (my review here http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=19374&sid=d6a4be2d2f2a8dc96d8584769ff8e32f) that claims that lawsuits were persued by Fender and Tokais were impounded and heads removed:

' Fender tried legal action. They authorised (does a commercial company authorise a government agency?!?!?) US customs to confiscate guitars that used Fender's headstock shapes and, dramatically, to cut off the heads of the offending instruments. Billboard magazine reported one such action' and it quotes the magazine.

Any comments?

 

[Barks67]

I first heard this story when on tour in 1990. We visited a shop called De Plug in Amsterdam to get strings etc before heading off to Germany - if that is any help?

They had a sunburst Springysound with the original spaghetti logo in and the discussion was about how it was the "Good Old Strat" aspect that got Tokai in trouble.

Barks

 

[iainblack]

I think a lot of people believe it is an urban myth but this book is presenting it as fact and quoting an article in bilboard magazine. I was looking to see what the naysayers response was really,

Iain

 

[Cali Girl]

Very cool find. I always thought the "lawsuit" was directed towards Ibanez and focused on Gibson copies. Shows what I know.

 

[rayspang]

I don't think Fender was upset for long. They had hooked up with Fugigen before 1982 and produced some of the best strats ever. (JV series). While the California plant was upgrading, I believe they even provided the U.S production for a short period. (EX designated models)

 

[singemonkey]

From what you've said here, it still comes off as hearsay, for the time being. Billboard would not be above printing some of that hearsay for itself. "Sources said..." kinda thing.

Surely if they actually took legal action it's verifiable through legal records?

 

[iainblack]

Agreed, but I should have put a questionmark in the title of the thread. Without printing the whole book there are quotes from many of the top Fender guys saying that the legal action was not workign so they went on the offensive in their own ground i.e. why not get a big enough slice of the pie that some of these guys will go out of business or create their own models.

I will check the book for a reference to the Billboard issue as searching their website has come up with nothing.

It is clear that Fender took legal action but not clear who it was against. in terms of the impounding 'quote' I added the bit about my scepticism that Fender would 'authorise' a government agency to impound imports. more likely they filed for patent infringement in the US and Customs impounded any Tokia.

The book further states that UK Fender retailers took action (it does not specify legal) against Tokai stockists. maybe Blue Suede could confirm?

I agree it would be great to get a copy of the legal papers just to see what was alleged. I think most people make the comment about the spaghetti 7okai logo that the lawsuit was aimed at that however I think it is clear that the lawsuit was based on the headstock design hence the AST changed shape. Global copyright law requires you to have a certain number of points of difference to prevent infringement.

I will have a look and get back to you.

 

[Mark Wein]

You guys might be interested in this: http://markweinguitarlessons.com/forums/showthread.php?1766-Tokai-Springy-Sound

I've owned this guitar since 1986. It's an awesome instrument but I've always been curious as to whether or not I had the story right.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

You guys might be interested in this

Heh, hardcore necroposting here (in the hope that somehow Mark gets notified of a reply and tells us the serial of his Springy) but meanwhile, more than 10 years later we know only of one actual lawsuit that happened in 1982, laid out, proven and documented in this thread. All research for anything that looks remotely like a legal dispute between FMIC and Tokai (or anyone who would've imported those) in the US did not bring up anything so far.

That makes it even more (mildly) mysterious that CBS-Fender was seemingly in possession of Tokai guitars, and how the odd messages got onto the back of the headstock.

Mark's Tokai story is still online here and when I read the strange wording on the two typewriter labeled strips with "This is not intended for export." and "But Sample purpose only.", my first thought was that this may have been typed in Japan and not in Fullerton?

So that could be just some guitars Fender acquired or requested when they started shopping for potential factories in Japan. Maybe they just wanted to have a few fun guitars in the house for a change, we'll never find out.

 

[Sigmania]

Iain is still a member here and pops in from time to time. You might try sending him a message? I would think that if he turnded up anything we would have heard about it 10 years ago.

As such, I got a clue when someone mentioned a magazine article that referenced a distributor in the UK, Blue Suede. I live in the US so knew nothing about them. From there I bought a letter off of Reverb by their written by Blue Suede's lawyer in response to threats made by Arbiter to Tokai's retailers in the UK. From there I found the court proceedings and my mind was blown. Before that all I heard was the mantra that there was no lawsuit. Well... there was.

What Iain is describing sounds like either a conflation of what happened in the UK, or a parallel strategy in the US. If dates were provided that would help immensely, but I don't see any in what was posted. Wold like to know when this supposedly happened, becasue in the period before the seizure Tokai had been in negotiations with fender before they went south. And I have seen that quote before about Tokai saying they will bury Fender. And only heard from the Dan Smith side, so...

Btw, when I click the link to Mark's page I get an error code and can't see anything. Not sure what I am missing.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Yeah I should have left a quote so it's more obvious to whom I was replying to (not Iain) (corrected that now). I saw that the link Mark left is dead, so I had also embedded a working link in my post.

I saw that he posted here only after I found Mark's forum (searching for something different) and spent the whole afternoon again scouring the National Archives Catalog digitized microform archives (extremely tedious and hopeless/flawed method, but there are not many options online) for something pointing towards such an event in the US and found nothing, except some confirmation that it should or at least could've been registered there somewhere.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Hmm... same typeface..... same typewriter?



Edit: No it's not, the caps T looks different (no serifs, also on other characters in the letter), but if you look at the slightly raised 'e' and slightly dropping 'd' in "intend" it almost looks like it could've been.

 

[Sigmania]

Does that say 1991 ? The LA Fender thing.

 

[Sigmania]

I am not clear about where this came from?

Edit: I see it now.

Tokai Springy Sound



This is something of a review of my very first nice strat. I had been playing guitar for only a few months in 1986 and was already looking past my $110 Memphis strat copy at Charvels and Kramers. I was taking guitar lessons at Sightsinger Music here in Orange and every Saturday I would drool over whatever they had on display. The guitar teacher I had at the time steered me into this Strat copy that he explained was part of what they bought from Fender wheen Fender moved out of the Fullerton factory...they blew out all the junk lying around that they really couldn't sell and this was part of a truckload of gear they had bought. I remember a bunch of the Starcaster semi hollow guitars lying around....

This was obviously a "lawsuit" guitar in that every detail of a 1956 strat was slavishly copied. If you check out the headstock even the decal looks like the Fender but the you see things like "Springy Sound" in place of "Stratocaster" and "Oldies but Goldies" in place of "Original Contoured Body"




The story I had heard was that they had a trio of these Tokai guitars that had in fact been used as samples in their trademark infringement case in the early 1980's against Tokai. The decals on the back of the headstock (still there to this day) seemed to bear this out:

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

Does that say 1991 ? The LA Fender thing.

No that's one case (?) vs. Schecter in 1990 and another one vs. ESP in 1985, whereas I have no idea what 'P' and 'PLA' stands for, one of the two likely means plaintiff... that's like 10,000 pages of non-search-indexed (=scroll fest) listings of court proceedings from 1977 - 1991 or something.

 

[Sigmania]

There is no telling where that guitar came from.

Dan Smith could have had that in his office and used it to motivate his folks to do better. I could make up all sorts of stories, but they would just be stories.

 

[Sigmania]

.

 

[Sigmania]

Hmm... same typeface..... same typewriter?

View attachment 37524

Edit: No it's not, the caps T looks different (no serifs, also on other characters in the letter), but if you look at the slightly raised 'e' and slightly dropping 'd' in "intend" it almost looks like it could've been.

They look different to me.

I was looking at the "s" in comparison and letters like "h" an "n" that seem narrower and more upright in the Tokai letter.

The type on the note on the headstock looks like every typewriter I saw when I was a kid growing up here in the US.

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

There is no telling where that guitar came from.

Dan Smith could have had that in his office and used it to motivate his folks to do better. I could make up all sorts of stories, but they would just be stories.

Of course there is no real evidence (cool story though) where this particular guitar came from, but that Fender actually did have Tokais apparently led to a hilarious little anecdote in their history:

Advertising for the reissues began in mid 1982, but even there it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing.
“When Fender introduced the vintage series in the earliest vintage replica catalog, it was really rather hilarious,” said George Gruhn. “If you get out a magnifying glass or have good eyesight, and you look at the rear-view picture of the vintage Stratocaster reissue, you can read the brand name on the back of the tuners. It says ‘Tokai’!

Fuzzfaced explains further and adds some confusion:

Dan Smith had been procuring and had some Japanese manufacturers samples branded Tokai amongst others. When the catalogue was being designed, Fender's UK consultant was contributing and gaining clearances and approvals for the Artist's photos and the layouts they were in working with Joe Phelps Advertising Agency and Dan Smith. Max Kay from EFR (Extremely Fucking Rare) Guitars was told by Tokai that the new Fender catalogue had photographs of Tokai guitars in. This wasn't completely true, because there was only a picture of the back of a Tokai Strat headstock showing the machine heads and this picture you can clearly see in the catalogue has "TOKAl" embossed into the metalwork of the gear covers. When questioned about this bogus machine head by the European agents Dan Smith explained that was the only Tokai neck used and it was used just because it was around when the photographer was working but thankfully spotted during the approvals process of what has become regarded as probably the best and most coveted Fender catalogue ever printed.

So whatever that is trying to say besides "they used only the back of the headstock picture", it seems Fender was indeed in possession of Tokai guitars, and a Tokai helped selling Fenders yet again .

 

[Sigmania]

Yep. I had seen that before. Not sure where. Thanks for sharing.

Source of Specs For Vintage Fender Strats?