Hello,
I've just registered, so please be gentle. First a little bit about myself: I am actually a bass player from Turkey, but I needed a strat-style guitar to fill in some backing tracks in my home studio. I set my upper limit to $1000 so vintage/American strats were out of reach. I've tried some Mexicans but I didn't like them. I was set on buying a Cort G285 or G290, they're better than Mex Fenders IMO and come with Seymour Duncans (G285) or EMGs (G290).
Anyways, I noticed a Tokai Springy Sound ST-80 in a second hand shop. Being a Fender bass player I know the brand, that got me intrigued, searched the web and arrived here. Information presented here convinced me it's original so after trying I bought it today. I paid $880. Guitars are normally expensive here - a new AmSe strat sells for $2500, Mex ones are a tad under $1000. I don't care if I paid too much or too little because I bought it to play. As I said it's much better than Mex Fenders, and while Cort stuff was good for the money, this one sounds a lot more "strat" to my ears.
The seller claimed it's '79, serial# is 1013735 (on the neckplate). Body seems like ash, 2-tone or tobacco burst. Rosewood board, V-neck, and very light overall. It has a few dings here and there but nothing extraordinary considering its age. One spring and tremolo arm is missing but no big deal to me. Tuners and saddles have TOKAI stamped, the pickguard is 3-ply W-B-W. I didn't check underneath the pickups (will do tonight) for an "E" mark but the sound convinced me enough.
I hope to be able to post some pics within a few days (hey let me play it first). But here is one from the seller: http://www.srvmusic.com/index_files/gitar/tokai2.jpg
It looks like 3tone in this pic but it actually is 2-tone.
So what do you think?
I've just registered, so please be gentle. First a little bit about myself: I am actually a bass player from Turkey, but I needed a strat-style guitar to fill in some backing tracks in my home studio. I set my upper limit to $1000 so vintage/American strats were out of reach. I've tried some Mexicans but I didn't like them. I was set on buying a Cort G285 or G290, they're better than Mex Fenders IMO and come with Seymour Duncans (G285) or EMGs (G290).
Anyways, I noticed a Tokai Springy Sound ST-80 in a second hand shop. Being a Fender bass player I know the brand, that got me intrigued, searched the web and arrived here. Information presented here convinced me it's original so after trying I bought it today. I paid $880. Guitars are normally expensive here - a new AmSe strat sells for $2500, Mex ones are a tad under $1000. I don't care if I paid too much or too little because I bought it to play. As I said it's much better than Mex Fenders, and while Cort stuff was good for the money, this one sounds a lot more "strat" to my ears.
The seller claimed it's '79, serial# is 1013735 (on the neckplate). Body seems like ash, 2-tone or tobacco burst. Rosewood board, V-neck, and very light overall. It has a few dings here and there but nothing extraordinary considering its age. One spring and tremolo arm is missing but no big deal to me. Tuners and saddles have TOKAI stamped, the pickguard is 3-ply W-B-W. I didn't check underneath the pickups (will do tonight) for an "E" mark but the sound convinced me enough.
I hope to be able to post some pics within a few days (hey let me play it first). But here is one from the seller: http://www.srvmusic.com/index_files/gitar/tokai2.jpg
It looks like 3tone in this pic but it actually is 2-tone.
So what do you think?