Love Rocks - the missing years?

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Novosel

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You know, I've seen my share of '84 and '85 Love Rocks in person, and have seen many a Reborn on Ebay as well as talked about here, but I very rarely hear about '82's and '83's, and I don't think I've ever heard of anything from 86-89. The Registry seems to bear this out. My theory is that 84/85 are common in North America possibly because this was when Tokai was hyping up the SRV connection. How about over in Europe - are the "missing years" found more readily there? Are 86-89 owners just an inheirently shy bunch? Anybody have some insight into this that they would like to share?
 
No ?insight?, just comment & guesswork ... think I see plenty of 1980, 81,82,83 Love Rocks on eBay, not many 1987-88. Maybe less in USA or Canada? What I definitely do see, is a ridiculous number of Goldstars advertised as ?1984? ie almost anything which doesn?t have either the 7okai logo or block logo :wink: . Not many used Tokai on sale in UK shops though :-? .

Ian.
 
There is a '95 catalogue in this site,so the missing link would be 89-94 mainly.There were a lot of cahanges in Tokai models since 85/86,in fact I guess koprean models were '89 year introduced as if you look at catalogues that is the time low end models: 45 and under appeared.
My guess Tokai dissapear in Europe/USA scene but it was active in Japan.
They are among the main factories in Japan.
 
Novosel said:
How about over in Europe - are the "missing years" found more readily there? Are 86-89 owners just an inheirently shy bunch? Anybody have some insight into this that they would like to share?
Click to expand...
I think it has a lot to do with the local dealers wanting to sell Tokai guitars or not back in these years. Just yesterday I read that interesting PDF file about Tokai UK and how they got started (Bluesuede Music). I think Chris posted a link to it. It also mentioned that famous "lawsuit" case which had its roots around the mid 80's, so after that story at least Germany was completely out of the market, although Tokai won. And these "bad feelings" probably still last (among the dealers, not the guitarists).

Concerning the very early 80's and late 70's I can only say that I hadn't heard or read enough to consider Tokai as a brand name when I was buying my first guitar which inevitably was an Ibanez back then. 1978 that company "owned" at least the important german publications like "Fachblatt" and others and also did quite good copies of Les Pauls, too. So everyone had to get an Ibanez or at least a Luxor (another known brand name for Japanese guitar copies in northern Germany at that time) if he didn't want to be a loser. :wink:
 
I can at least offer to confess to having a 1990 Love Rock :wink: It must be some kind of LS-50, interestingly with a 17/18 degree headstock. It's not a high end guitar, but I like it's versatility and the fact that it's light. Should be a MIJ. Totally different sound and feel than my 1980 LS-60.
 

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