Value of Information-Korean vs Japanese Revisited

I am new around here-I found this site after buying a Paisley Tokai Tele and looking for info on it. Before I found this site I also bought a seafoam Goldstar Sound Strat off of Ebay. I have since concluded the Strat is a newer model made in Korea-it was not represented as an older model but I was not informed enough to know the difference. While it is not a bad guitar it is clearly not up to the quality of the Paisley or other earlier Tokai Fender replicas I have played. The hardware is very cheesy-the bridge is obviously of cheap metal and the screws in the bridge saddles protrude way too far making playing uncomfortable-I can and will fix that but it shouldn't have to be done. The tuners are also clearly inferior. The pickups while they sound OK are the magnet on the bottom variety and are wired to those tiny pots and crappy five way switch you now see on most cheap guitars-also fixable but at a price. The good news is the neck is very nice with excellent frets but the radius is very flat and the feel is very modern not vintage. The finish is fine as well but the body contours are more squared off than the older ones. All in all I couldn't really recommend one of these guitars and I wish I had done more research up front. I do not know if this is true of all of them so I am not passing judgement on the lot but if I was going to buy another one I would make sure it was one of the older models. However any dissappointment with this one is far superceded by delight with the Paisley which is rapidly becoming my favorite Tele. I have two Fender Custom shops and two MIJ Teles and the Paisley Tokai is the equal of them all. There is much mis-information and deceptive practices going on out there about Tokai right now-this is an invaluable site and I only wish I had read through all the threads here BEFORE I bought the seafoam. Live and learn.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chris T on 2002-03-26 00:09 ]</font>

Chris,

I have just taken ownership of a new Korean AST-33 Goldstar sound in Lake Placid Blue, look to the site soon for a full review.

I new exactly what I was getting when I made the purchase and yes the bridge, tuners and electronics are substandard to the Japanese models. But the finish is wonderful and the neck while flatter than my USA Strat is very comfortable. Frankly its the best $270 (US) guitar you could buy. I will change the tuners and electronics but my plan was to use this guitar as a means to provide site visitors with information on the base guitar and the potential mods that can be done.

Ned

Ned,
I will be interested to see how you mod yours. I am not sure yet what I will do with mine. My post was not intended as a slam on this guitar-it has many very positive points-like you said the finish is excellent and the neck is very well done. My point was that one needs to be very sure of exactly what you are getting when you buy a Tokai guitar-I wasn't and as such this one surprised me somewhat-it just doesn't have the vintage feel to it I was hoping it would. I have no one to blame for that but myself but I never meant to imply it was a bad guitar.

No problem. I have posted my review of the AST33 on the main site - check the menu on the right of the main page.

I think you'll find we had about the same conclusions. Basically I plan on adding locking Sperzel tuners, hipshot tremsetter and Rio Grande pups.

Ned

After careful consideration I have decided to do some mods on mine as well. I already have a set of used Fender 57/62 pickups which I personally like a lot-tonight I bought a prewired assembly that has better pots and switch and is white pearloid which will look very sharp on the seafoam color. I also ordered a bridge/trem unit with a bigger trem block and better saddles. I never use the trem so the tuners that came with it will stay on-they seem to do an OK job. The neck and frets are excellent-the neck fits the body well-I think this will be a fine guitar when I am done and even with the extra parts my investment will be below the $400 level-I got all these parts used except for the trem unit. Should be a fun experiment...

Hi Chris,
Did you find the information you wanted about the Paisley Tele?

Peter

I did and I didn't. I found them listed in one of the catalogs and I appreciate your post about them on the other thread. I just wonder how many of them made it to the USA and how many of them there are in total. Very cool guitar-I enjoy the Paisley more every day....