Reborn players & collectors please take note.....

I am sure most scoff @ my strange Tokai GT posting below because of it's strangenest, I tore the guitar down today & made several more strage discoveries. 1st is someone carefully sanded vertical with grain on last fret exactly where a Reborn 50-60-80 etc would be. I placed a high intensnce light on it & low & behold a 50 is present & eactly where it would be on a Reborn, the 5 is slightly higher than the 0 & directly between D & G strings. No mistaking this, but hard to photograph, but tried. Then I took pickups out & it has a long Tendon & not a slop job either, very carefully fitted in the round cornered route in pickup cavity, The glue is behind the tongue of the tendon towards back of pickup cavity..exactly as all the pic's of Rebornes I have seen. As mentioned before the fret markers are of Reborn style & I swear the are Celluiod. The TRC cover is a mystery, the 3 holes under cover look factory & done at the time of manufactor. The cover outline is the only outline I see. the holes look to be drilled all at the same time period. cover is dead center. the rust on the TR bolt washer is also period correct, brass is also. The Dimarzio SD's are also period correct. The internal wiring looks exactly what I have seen in higher end Greco's. The pots are higher quality than I have seen before on any MIJ, they are marked, # 504042 then under that they say 80 K. The caps are black Fujicon PIO's of .022uf They also have the the red marker spots depicting tone & volume controle that I have also seen only on high end Greco..I also think it is Nitro shot & will confirm that soon.Top is 1 piece & back I am not sure of yet, 2 piece most likely but could be 1 piece. The internal wiring looks period correct, solders etc...So my call on this now stands as built between 1978-80 & is a Reborn kinda..I feel what happened it Tokai-Greco etc all shared the same factory between 1978-80 & just rented area's as I have read before, I believe this to be true. As this seems to be a cross between Greco build & Tokai, also would explain the inked seriel #'s on earlly Tokai's that confuse everyone.again this tendon is carefully fit with no gaps even in the rounded corners as some MIJ long Tendons are much more sloppy fit. this all leads me to totally believe what seller told me about this bieng a empoleyee built guitar for personal use & eather sold privately given to a collector & for his own private use, hence no seriel # & the sanding off of the 50 on the fret bourd.OR maybe builder did not want someone to know he was taking such a good guitar from factory for some reason.Tuners are also replaced or perposely not double ring. also speed knobs on it look period correct & Greco used them all the time..The Bridge says SG BRIDGE. F 8107 made in japan on it, tailpiece says TAILPICE made in Japan So basically this is a Greco/Reborn cross..mixed blood so to speak, that is my theory..Extraordanary good sounding LP also..The 1978-1982 period for these typrs of guitars is a mysteriouse gig & I am sure more cross bred guitars of this period will pop up. I have a bazzion pic's now of it in detail & picked just a few so you can compare for sake of intrest or whatever..J & G

Nice gold top. Looks like you may have something there. Some full frontal shots etc would be nice.

Hmm.....I'll have to tear mine apart for a good look. You've piqued my curiosity. Nice guitar

can you get a better picture of the tenon?

I have a suspicion tokai never actually used a long tenon...those are just routes made in the pup cavity to make it look like an old gibson....if you look carefully the neck actually *ends* at the edge of the neck cavity & doesn't extend inward....an old gibson has the wood from the neck actually extend inward into the cavity

my '81 love rock is exactly like yours, although it looks very much like a "tenon" unless you look very closely.


cheers

Spot on Bolero, no long tenon there just the routing... :wink:

Yes, I did realise about the route only. I did check where the neck & tendon would meet if not 1 piece, as I have had several that are just a route. This is NOT just a route. it is 1 piece. Albiet nit as deep as original gibson for sure, but this might not even be completely Tokai built I suspect.