Orville - closed thread - do not post anymore

Hi:

What about those Orvilles?
I am a little confused.
Some say they were all made in Japan and are great quality, while others say Kxxx were made in Korea and are of inferior quality.

If they are Korean, what is inferior? (hardware, paint, workmanship)?

Where is your knowledge coming from? Is it from reliable resources (manufacturer), or is it just guessing and research made on the web?

I have ordered an Orville yesterday. It is one with Kxxx, and will keep you posted on it's quality (very subjectivelly =;-)

I think there were none made in Korea, the Kxxx's were special orders by a Japanese music store whose name began with a K. The biggest factor on orvilles is whether they are "Orvilles" or Orvilles by Gibson", the latter being higher grade with nitro and fret binding and long neck tenon and gibson USA pickups ('57s). Check villager's site for some more info.

Debateable stanny...

jury is still out on this one...the K stickered orvilles i have seen..(not many as i deal in ObG's exclusivly..) have had a different thicker poly finish, different hardware, and the paint colour is different..now that doesnt in any way mean they were not made in japan..but i personally do not think they were made at fuji-gen...

but I do not know for sure...

ps enjoying your 335?

I have to go with Mark on this one. I would never buy a K stickered Orville. Japan has always had a habit of subing guitars out to other countries for cheaper prices and then putting some type of peel off sticker on them. They still do this on Tokai and on Burny.

What amazes me is that the Japanese guitar dealers know so little about the Orvilles.
I've seen Japanese guitar dealers say the Orvilles started in 1984 and some even say the K Orvilles are just from 1996.
I asked a Japanese guy who has Orvilles on ebay every now and then why the K Orvilles are from Korea because he was selling a K Orville and saying in his ebay item description that it was Korean.
The explanation he gave me was totally stupid and he basically said that Iida was making Orvilles in Korea on the sly instead of in Japan and when Yamano found out about it they cancelled Iida's contract.
Stuff like this is just BS that they made up themselves.
There are too many K Orvilles around to be made on the sly in Korea by someone like Iida.
There are as many K Orvilles as there are ink stamped serial Orvilles.
Yamano would have to have been sleeping for 4 years because the K Orvilles come from 1989 to 1993 (I've got 2 year verifications from original Japanese K Orville owners).
The ink stamped Orvilles (excluding the basses which are from 1989) are from 1993 to 1998.
So the K Orvilles had a run of 4 years and the ink stamped Orvilles had a run of 5 years which is why there are as many K Orvilles as ink stamped Orvilles.
Show me an ink stamped Orville (not a bass) from 1992 if you want to prove this wrong.
I'm using this as an example that the Japanese guitar dealers know nothing about the Orvilles.
If you want info on the Orvilles you have to ask original Japanese owners and look for serial number patterns.
From my research I've come to the conclusion that the K Orvilles were handled by Kanda Shokai and were made by Tokai in Japan.
If you can prove me wrong then do so but don't give me any Japanese guitar dealers BS.

I have to disagree...i have personally seen more non K orvilles than K ones...

whether they were made in korea or not is still unknown, however I am pretty sure they were not made at fugi-gen..this is not 'japanese guitar dealer BS' just based on my own observations, and my japanese buyers comments on the differences between K and non K orvilles...its no big deal, but personally I would not buy a K stickered orville...thats my choice ....

I also think that the ink stamped orvilles started in 1988 not 1993..

Also, I've read a lot of posts saying all Orville by Gibson Les Pauls have a long tenon, this isn't true. I have a OBG standard dating from '93 which has a short tenon. Also the same guitar has the sloppiest inlay work I've seen but the filler is some kind of see-through material so you can see the wood beneath it. Do OBGs have a record for sloppy inlays or have I just been lucky?

All ObG's made at Fuji-gen have long tenon...some were farmed out to other factories ..these do not have long tenon...not all the inlays are sloppy..some are pretty neat, but all ObG inlays have a tendancy to come loose, the glue loses its nature after 15 yrs..so yours may well have been stuck back in a sloppy manner ...who knows?

I've never seen a 1988 Orville and noone else has as far as I know.
A 1989 ink stamped serial Orville Bass is the earliest I've seen.
Some OBG's don't have long tenon necks and I think they are usually from the earlier years of production.
It indicates that more than one factory was used and Tokai looks like a good candidate in my book as well as Fujigen.
Tokai is known for building Les Pauls with medium tenon neck joints.
At http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e63090764 there is a K Orville with a 3 piece top.
Some K Orvilles have a 3 piece top some don't once again indicating different factories and once again Tokai is a likely candidate as they made 3 piece Les Pauls at the time and maybe fujigen did some.
If I saw a medium tenon 2 piece OBG I'd say it was made by tokai.
If I saw a long tenon 2 piece OBG I'd say it was made by fujigen.
If I saw a 2 piece or 3 piece medium tenon K Orville I'd say it was made by tokai.
If I saw a 2 piece long tenon K Orville (if they exist) I'd say it was made by fujigen.
If for arguments sake the K Orvilles were made in Korea the most likely factories are Samick and Peerless with Samick being the best bet.
Was Samick making 3 piece Les Pauls in 1989.
As far as I know the Epiphone Samicks from around 1989 are all 2 piece.
Also if you compare a Korean Epiphone Samick to a K Orville they really have nothing in common but a K Orville has a lot in common with the lower priced tokai les pauls from the time.
And what about the K Orvilles (as well as other Orvilles) being made in different factories theory, for Korea both Samick and Peerless would have had to be producing the K Orvilles, it's more likely the different factories were in Japan.
And then there's the export/local stuff.
The guitars made in Korea at the time were mostly made for export to the states and europe (like epiphones and Ibanez's) so it probably would be easiest for a Japanese music company to commission a local japanese company like tokai to make medium priced models because tokai were already doing this in the late 1980's early 1990's in Japan (this is before tokai had guitars made in Korea).

interesting..if i had to bet i would go for the different factories theory...

I would recomend anyone interested in guitar making in Japan to read Hoshinos new book ..Ibanez,The Untold Story. In it are dozens of photos and stories of the Fujigen factory and the people who worked there. An interesting quote on page 108. "1982, The Fujigen factory even discontinued making set-in neck guitars for a time and sold off the machinery used in making them in order to persue more profitable bolt-on neck guitar making. "

but I have lots of set neck LP's from fuji-gen in 1982..hehe must have been a short experiment....

How can you be sure they're from fujigen?

because greco never used another manufacturing plant to my knowledge..

of course theres no way to be 100% sure ..but they have all the same manufacturing details as the super Reals which were all made at Fuji-gen in 80 and 81..body routing is identical..unlikely that another factory with different machines would have identical set up..possible i suppose..but unlikely...also the mint collection neck joint from 82 is the same as 83/4 etc..so again the same reasoning...

Mark, I guess Greco could use Matsumoku plant for bolt-ons on 70?s not sure about LPs........

yes luis ..in 70's for sure, but I meant from 1980 onward..lol my favourite greco era...

One of the best guitars I've ever had was an Ibanez les paul copy deluxe 59er from around 1976 with a maple fingerboard like a strat.
It had a bolt on neck as well.
There is a picture of this model on one of the ibanez sites.
http://www.ibanezregister.com/
do a search for 2342.

It had Ibanez Super 70's pickups and a solid Les Paul sound with a bright sort of tone probably because of the maple fingerboaard.
I wonder who made it.
Like a fool I sold it and bought a Fender strat.

At http://www.ibanezcollectors.com/discus/messages/6484/6640.html?1159481880

Jim Donahue, former Ibanez product manager says that fujigen stopped set necks in 1985 and didn't start them again until 1991 basically because they were making a lot of fenders so Ibanez looked around for a different maker and they got Iida to make them instead of fujigen.

So who made the 1988 Orville by Gibsons if it wasn't fujigen?

Iida Tokai Terada.

Terada are more of a semi acoustic, acoustic maker.

Fujigen was making a lot of Fenders and were not interested in making set necks.

Iida were making all the Ibanez Artists at the time and had trouble keeping up with orders from Ibanez so I doubt it's them.

Maybe Tokai made them.

There's no doubt that all the Orville (just Orville from 1995) solid bodies from 1995 till 1998 are made by fujigen because they all seem to have fujigens style about them and the epiphone japan models from 1998 are marked with fujigens F prefix.
A lot of the Orville by Gibson solid bodies from 1988 to 1995 don't look like fujigen made guitars to me.
Some of the Orville by Gibsons from 1998 to 1995 don't have long tenon necks and have a style that reminds me of tokai solid bodies.

Concluding:
Orville's were made.
Some say here, some say there. There is a load of speculations and hersay. Most of it is unconfirmed, heard from someone who heard from someone who knew something from someone.

All BS. Nothing for sure.
Stop wasting your time writting about it like you know what happened unless you can prove it.
------------------------------------------
Just a little frustrated with wanna be experts.
A beer will wash away the frustration.

Arek said:

Concluding:
Orville's were made.
Some say here, some say there. There is a load of speculations and hersay. Most of it is unconfirmed, heard from someone who heard from someone who knew something from someone.

All BS. Nothing for sure.
Stop wasting your time writting about it like you know what happened unless you can prove it.

Click to expand...

OK, how about a Prozac; some happy pills?