When Did Tokai Stop Using the PCB in the Love Rock?

[Peter Mac]

hey guys,

some good points brought up there, Hans

Congrats on your LS-120, a brilliant guitar I'm sure. The S/N would indicate late '81 production which is essentially an '82 model. Tokai did their model changes around September (similar to Auto industry).
My take on the inke vs stamped scenario is very few guitars were inked, and certainly none were done after'78. My reasoning on this is the fingerboard model stamps used from '79. Once this happened it is fair to say that serial numbers on all Gibbo style guitars were all stamped (impressed)
Also the 1977 models were not LP Reborn. They were LP Model. the Reborn was not used til 1978 and '79, with Reborn Old during 1980. One could almost say that Love Rock was used after the 10,000 guitar was reached ( only a theory at this stage)
In terms of '76 models, I have seen nothing to support LS models earlier than '77, indeed the 1978 catalog is listed as Volume 1. This is something to be wary of.
I don't think this issue will haunt us. It seems as more and more un-original Tokais are released and every guitarist wants a 'rare and exclusive' guitar, it will only feed the fakers. If we use what has been determined as the yardstick, then it becomes harder for fakes to sell.

regards
Peter Mac

 

[hans-j?rgen]

Congrats on your LS-120, a brilliant guitar I'm sure. The S/N would indicate late '81 production which is essentially an '82 model. Tokai did their model changes around September (similar to Auto industry).

When closely looking at the serial number of the four Love Rocks that I had at my place a few months ago I found that the last digit seems to be stamped differently (manually?), because the other 6 digits were looking equal. My first idea was that Tokai might have used the last digit for some other code like the Gibson model they replicated with that specific guitar, e.g. "9" would mean "1959 Les Paul Standard". But the 1984 LS60 from my friend had a "5" as the last digit, so that idea was obviously wrong. Maybe the stamping machine just had a slightly different stamp (newer or older) for the last digit.

In terms of '76 models, I have seen nothing to support LS models earlier than '77, indeed the 1978 catalog is listed as Volume 1. This is something to be wary of.

I was very surprised when I recently found a Japanese dealer through www.j-guitar.com who claims to have a 1976 Les Paul Reborn LS100 OS, because I've never heard of them this early either:

http://www.j-guitar.com/sp/sea/view_detail.cgi?pid=11380042

[Edit]
Just found a web service that is able to translate this page (Google and Babelfish are not):

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/websites/url_translator.html

In the translation it says "around 1976", so that might of course also mean 1977. There's no serial number mentioned in the ad, as far as I can see.

The "Vol. 1" is used on several later catalogs, too, so I often wondered what they want to express with that term...

I don't think this issue will haunt us. It seems as more and more un-original Tokais are released and every guitarist wants a 'rare and exclusive' guitar, it will only feed the fakers. If we use what has been determined as the yardstick, then it becomes harder for fakes to sell.

I also wonder where all these mint 1980 Les Paul Reborns, Reborn Olds and Love Rocks come from, but it seems that at least not all of them are fakes. It might also be caused by the rising prices that people in Japan actually start to look for these models in the pawn shops or under their beds.

 

[hans-j?rgen]

Although there is another problem with that page regarding Les Paul Reborns from 1980. We recently had a thread here with a such a model in black that didn't seem to be faked.

I just checked that older thread and the ebay auctions on these three black Tokais again and edited my postings there. Might add some more info and/or confusion how serial numbers were generated as well as how long Les Paul Reborn decals have been used.

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=17474#17474

By the way, how difficult is it to apply those ebay "repair decals" onto the headstock? Can you simply get rid of the "Love Rock" logo with some water and/or solver and slide the fake on it? Is it visible in any way after it has dried? Is there only one guy in the UK selling it, or are there other "specialists" in Asia, too? :roll: