TOKAI LOVE ROCK LS50 BODY QUESTION?

[mojo hobo]

Alrighty then! I am a man who can take a lot hard knocks in life , but this is going to be a huge embarassment,i may not recover from!
I received a SEA shipment of three guitars today,in that container/box was a TOKAI LOVE ROCK LS50 from 1985. I posted the sellers pictures in a thread on this very forum. I brought it from YAHOO.JAPAN like i always do,never had a problem with any guitars legitimacy,until this baby arrived.
So without further a do ,meet my love rock ls -50,I hope we will learn something from my impulsive buy :lol:
The guitar is really light first sign,The BODY IS MADE FROM SOME WOOD BUT NOT MAHOGANY,NO GRAIN,looking in the pickup cavity and neck joint no marking on model number,white wood showing like maple or even pine!

TRUSS ROD COVER CORRECT FOR 1985 ,1985 SERIAL EMBOSSED OVER THE FINISH NOT UNDER THE POLY,PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT AND YOU CAN FEEL THE DIGITS PUT ON AFTER FINISH!

Truss rod cover NO signs of extra holes ,just two in the right place,very confusing and it is really annoying.neck join offset, tenon like all tokais,50 oval sticker in the right place,bridge studs the correct size and straight into wood no inserts ,made in japan stamped on tailpiece and abr-1.
EVERYTHING IS RIGHT APART FROM THE BODY WOOD!It PLAYS REALLY WELL AND IT SOUNDS AND SUSTAINS NICELY,The neck is made from mahogany.sorry the pictures are **** maybe i need my eyes tested!using my phone camera!
This is a real tokai ls50 ,weird why they made it from this wood?

MOJO HOBO

 

[mojo hobo]

Heres the link to the post here with the sellers photos!
http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=15210
The pickups are unknown with four conductor wiring!
3-piece top ,two piece center seamed body from whatever wood it is ?

MOJO HOBO

 

[justin10054]

...it was cheap...

...EVERYTHING IS RIGHT APART FROM THE BODY WOOD!It PLAYS REALLY WELL AND IT SOUNDS AND SUSTAINS NICELY...

i'm failing to see a problem here.
what makes you so sure it's a fake? it seems kind of arbitrary for a person to fake a mid-'80s LS-50. certainly there are easier ways of scamming money out of someone.

 

[JohnA]

I think justin10054 is right, there seems little point in faking a guitar like this. My guess is it's just a think sealer coat under the poly, it's had to tell what the wood is from the pics, but everything else on the guitar looks fine

 

[mojo hobo]

Well that why i have posted it ,I have a tokai love rock ls80 from 1980,I have not seen or held a lower model tokai love rock in the flesh ,this might be a real one i just do not know ,1985 was a odd year for tokai , guitar specs were all over the place,ls50 models with fret binding,18 degree headstocks,that were marked witha 50 sticker.This is a real ls50 IMHO,it feels well made with aged bindings and screws,but it is not mahogany ,i am sure of that!This body is made from soft wood long fibres ,not hard wood short fibres ,I stuck my knife in the pots cavity and scrapped a the black paint off ,it is white wood and very soft .Have i got a very rare tokai here or what! a preproduction model ,a trainee luthiers workshop piece ,i am totally confused ,I have 6 les pauls i know what mahogany body looks like, am i going mad?????


mojo hobo

 

[mojo hobo]

Sorry for the poor quality photos,Here is a back and neck shot the colour between the two is very noticable,the neck finish is a lot darker than the body.

MOJO HOBO

 

[cryptozoo]

This doesn't look like a fake to me. If someone was going to fake a Tokai, why not do a something a little more valuable than a 50?

 

[mojo hobo]

Everything is correct with this guitar ,the pickup routing holes is square ,the offset neck tennon,the truss rod, the cover,the pots.the bridge inserts,the tokai and love rock logos ....the screws are aged along with bindings ,one piece neck,correct tokai neck ,nice rosewood board and inlays,the list goes on ,but it is not mahogany body,i swear it is white and a SOFT WOOD with long fibres,I am in the process of refinishing a epiphone japan,unless there is white mahogany.
surely the serial number should be embossed under the finish not the other way round,
I know what you guys are saying,but there is something not right with this body wood construction.
I need to get myself a new digital camera,to show you all with better photos,should i say convice you all. LOL
MOJO HOBO

 

[le juge]

Considering the pickups routing, it's easy to recognize a true Tokai. 8)

 

[mojo hobo]

OK ! It is a real tokai ,i did when i unpacked it and tuned it then played it ,nice i thought,a good cheap buy,Then i went and poked my nose in,and i wanted to know what pickups were fitted,they should be exposed coil paf 57s ,this guitar has chrome covers ,so i wanted to have a peak at the pups,when i removed the pup the first thing i noticed was the exposed white wood near the neck tennon,and so you know the rest?
I Checked and double checked everthing i know about tokais and it all it correct apart from the serial number being rough to the touch,like it was stamped after the finish and coating.

So what pickups are these anybody have a clue....... :lol:


MOJO HOBO

 

[mojo hobo]

look at this picture of the neck horn binding there is no cap the binding is extra thick!

KOIZS WITH INSERT UNDER BINDING!

Here is a photo of a ls50 from 1985 from KOIZ GUITARS photo album,it is exactly the same apart form the body wood being mahogany,you can see how dark it is compared to the maple top,then look at mine the back body is as light as the maple top :roll:

heres mine the rear pup cavity

KOIZ GUITARS FRONT NECK CAVITY:

HERES MINE?

YOU CAN SEE HOW DARK MAHOGANY SHOULD BE WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE NECK TENNON END?


MOJO HOBO

 

[mojo hobo]

Heres KOIZS GUITAR AGAIN!

Heres mine same cavity:

The bottom body has the same loose grain as the top ,not at all like closed grain mahogany.
Somebody believe me ,this is a tokai that is slightly different from the norm!


MOJO HOBO

 

[Koubayashi]

Looks like basswood to me.
Not unusual to find it in Japanese guitars (or Korean and Chinese).
There is also another wood they use which is light and could be described as Asian maogany. But this guitar looks like basswood to me.

Fake or not, I have seen all kinds of Japanese guitars with basswood.
Squier JV (export) are often basswood. Sounds good acoustically and not bad plugged in.

 

[mojo hobo]

Thanks koubayashi, someone who thinks the same as me



MOJO HOBO

 

[NWOBHM]

Hey Mojo, I've seen one just like that, 85' model LS50 before. Looks like basswood to me also. Chingo, a well known seller, had one on Ebay before. He always post tons of pics of his auctions and right away you could tell the body wasn't mahagoney, had no grain and was very white. Just from the routes, definately Japan.

 

[billysamboy1]

my 1985 ls80 has the same kind of serial number where you can feel it

 

[mojo hobo]

Thank you nw,you are are real diamond,whenever you post i always know it will be interesting
You do not have a link to that auction NW,would ya!So chingo had one wonder if he brought it knowing it was not mahogany???

Alright! lets look at this with some sherlock holmes logic!just lighting my pipe?

This is a real TOKAI love rock from 1985 :
It is a ls 50 model:
It Was MADE IN JAPAN by the pickup routing holes and build construction & hardware.
1984-1985 was by all accounts a pretty strange and testing time for tokai,they nearly went bust in the mid 80s,transition models ,specs were all over the place.

The questions i really want to know the answers to is??????

DID tokai in 1985 make a batch of love rocks made from with a BASSWOOD body?
They did this to expieriment with this as a cost cutting method and see how the market would react;
Or Were they broke and had to?
WHY have i never heard,seen or somebody posted this info in a thread or the info in the registry.
Have i missed it somewhere?
Again nothing surpises me anymore with japanese guitars,but this has!!
A TOKAI love rock made in japan in the mid 80s from basswood,my mistake ,my bad luck,A one in million chance that i picked a love rock made from basswood!so does this make this guitar rare then!
I Have to say in its defence it does sound quite good and sustains like a les paul should.
WONDER if there are any ls200 from that period made from basswood LOL
ANYBODY HAVE A LS50 THE SAME!

MOJO HOBO

 

[Koubayashi]

It is not unusual that Japanese guitars are like this.
Many forget that Tokai, Kanda, Fernandes and all the others are companies and their first target is to make money.

I have had high end Grecos with Asian fake mahogany, one of my Fender JV Jazzmasters is made from basswood and I am pretty sure that there is a thick layer of plastic **** under the clear coat on some of my Super Reals. I have/had 3 pieced 850s, 4 pieced RLG150, 3 pieced EGF1800 etc....

However, I also got "real" guitars

 

[villager]

I have 2 LS-200's from 1985 both are 1 piece mahog back, and beautiful solid flametop, I will only buy 150's and 200's after 1982 dur to the huge variation in lower model specs, but, I have never seen any high end Japanese guitar with a basswood body.


Koubayashi
i have seen one 3 piece 850 but certainly not a 4 piece burny 150, they were specifically specced as 1 piece, and a 3 piece EGF-1800 never..just 1 and 2 piece, and what is fake mahogony??

 

[Koubayashi]

I have 2 LS-200's from 1985 both are 1 piece mahog back, and beautiful solid flametop, I will only buy 150's and 200's after 1982 dur to the huge variation in lower model specs, but, I have never seen any high end Japanese guitar with a basswood body.


Koubayashi
i have seen one 3 piece 850 but certainly not a 4 piece burny 150, they were specifically specced as 1 piece, and a 3 piece EGF-1800 never..just 1 and 2 piece, and what is fake mahogony??

I had a EGF1800 with 3piece back.
Couldn't stand it so I sold it. The 3rd piece was just a cm on the top (where the arm is when yu play).

The Fake mahogany is an Asian wood that looks very much like mahogany but is very light both in weight and colour.
I stripped a "regular" Greco and according to my mate it was not mahogany, when I removed the finish and the filler there was a white wood. I took it to a luthier and he said that that was no mahogany but an Asian wood that looks like mahogany when its tinted with darker colour.
Common in furnitures as well according to a friend of mine who works for Ikea.