Incoming Tokai Custom Edition Strat - year?

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wulfman

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Hi folks,

I have this guitar arriving in the next few days hopefully and wonder if there is any idea of a model number and year. It has a set of gold Tokai hardware and looks to have Tokai-stamped saddles. I think it has a maple veneer on top with a bit of flame. I didn't see this particular model in any of the catalogs I have through the 80's.

Thanks for any ideas you may have!



 
Nice .. congrats !
I couldn't find anything close to specs like yours in catalogs either.

Custom Edition headstock script first appears in 1986 vol 12 catalog and ends shortly afterwards,
so I would think your neck dates between oct 1985 to the around the end of 1987 as a best guess.

The neck plate # is in the early-mid 80's 5 digit range, but gold plating might have been a factor in the earlier #.
IIRC, late 80's/early 90's AST 5 digit # models all begin with 22xxx or 23xxx.

Tokai promoted gold bridges and scratchplates in the 1987 catalog, but your saddles look more like earlier saddles
than the 1987 "special order" ones pictured.
Seems like there were a lot of Custom Edition variations, possibly too many to display them all ?
There are figured ST top examples in the 1986 catalog, but I haven't seen any with a top mounted recessed jack,
which is not to say they don't exist.

There is a 1983 vol 7 BB ST model pictured on page 8 with all gold hardware , but I can't be sure what model it is.
It appears to be available in other body colors.

I'll reserve conclusions until you can check neck + body codes,
but can't see why the body couldn't be a special order or some variation of a Custom Edition.
1985+ examples have a hyphen between neck + body codes instead of an = sign.

Hopefully there will be an outline of a model # on the neck, if model # decals were still used after 1985.
Pickup stamps might be clues as well.

Best of luck with it.
 
Thanks a bunch Reborn. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of pickups it has and if there are any clues in the cavities.
 

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