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balint137

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Hi guys,

My first post, greetings to everybody from Hungary! I recently joined the group of proud Tokai owners, I bought this beautiful Goldstar Sound from 1984:



The seller told me everything is original except the pickup switch and volume pot, but didn't know the exact model.
Based on pieces of information I read on this forum, my guess is an ST-50. The price in USD was about 470, which is a good deal IMO.

The guitar feels very nice and it's in a good overall condition. There are some uneven frets and there's a dent in 18-19th under the 3rd string. I don't think there's enough material left for leveling, so I might take it to refretting soon. Also the neck has almost no relief with the truss rod completely loose, I'm not sure if it's stuck somehow or the wood itself is so stiff. But it's not a big problem, the setup is still okay.

More pictures: https://ibb.co/album/ifA1bF?sort=title_asc

Cheers,
Balint
 
It's at least a 60 because it has the "E" pickups.

I'd say you did well, and when you refret you can choose your best option for fretwire.

Congrats
 
If it was shipped with no string tension the neck will have straightened out. What I usually do is put on some big gauge strings, as tight as theyll go without snapping and leave the body laying on the ground with the neck propped up at the headstock by a big book of something, so gravity will propt the neck to relieve again.

Nice guitar though :)
 
Hi guys,

Very nice guitar but it has had a neck swap.
Serial number is for a rosewood neck - not a maple one. Maple one would be 5 digits for ST-50 and 4 digits for ST-60
Neck and body stamps don't match.
Neck has Goldstar logo but serial could be Springy - I'll look further.
If this was ST-60 (going by the pickups), the Maple neck would have a round string tree and V-neck.

Overall though, if it plays well and kicks ***, that is all that matters....and of course you got it at a good price

regards
Peter
 
felixcatus said:
Congrats, and welcome to the forum.

brokentoes said:
It's at least a 60 because it has the "E" pickups.

I'd say you did well, and when you refret you can choose your best option for fretwire.

Congrats

Thanks guys! 8)

Yes I'm thinking about taller frets, the fingerboard already has some dents caused by the strings.
Hmm not sure about the 60, it seems to have a 3-piece body. Although it's hard to assess because of the finish.
 
Mono said:
If it was shipped with no string tension the neck will have straightened out. What I usually do is put on some big gauge strings, as tight as theyll go without snapping and leave the body laying on the ground with the neck propped up at the headstock by a big book of something, so gravity will propt the neck to relieve again.

Nice guitar though :)

Whoa that sounds drastic, but efficient! :D I'll keep it in mind if I'm not satisfied with the relief later.

HAMAMATSU said:
8) very cool guitar! tokai is well known and popular in hungary now and then? congrats and welcome!

Thanks! I wouldn't say well known, but some vintage Tokais pop up from time to time on the local advertisement websites.

Off-topic:
A guitar brand called Tokai sounds funny here, we have a famous city and wine region called Tokaj, pronounced the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaj_wine_region
So people (even some musicians) look weird at you when you mention Tokai guitars first, everybody thinks of some cheap local replicas with a misspelled name of the city, instead of fine Japanese craftsmanship :D
 
Peter Mac said:
Hi guys,

Very nice guitar but it has had a neck swap.
Serial number is for a rosewood neck - not a maple one. Maple one would be 5 digits for ST-50 and 4 digits for ST-60
Neck and body stamps don't match.
Neck has Goldstar logo but serial could be Springy - I'll look further.
If this was ST-60 (going by the pickups), the Maple neck would have a round string tree and V-neck.

Overall though, if it plays well and kicks ***, that is all that matters....and of course you got it at a good price

regards
Peter

Hi Peter,

Interesting stuff, thanks for the insight! The neck looks more like C or U to me, and the body seems to be 3-piece.
You're right, of course most important is that it plays nice :D Anyway, it's interesting to find out more about the history of the guitar.
 

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