It's extremely hard to say that that
is a geniune Tokai Jazz Sound, but it's actually fairly easy to say that there is nothing (not already mentioned by the seller) which screams "FAKAI" at me :-? .
One way that you can be sure that you're looking at a fake Tokai is when you see a 'slab board' rosewood neck. A lot of Fender copies have a flat-bottomed rosewood fretboard glued to a flat-topped maple neck. Tokai went to the trouble of machining a curved rosewood board and glueing it to a curved neck blank. This bass
has that 'rounded laminate' neck and so it is very probably either a Tokai, a high quality Japanese copy, or a real 1964 Fender :lol: !
As for offering him ?200, I wouldn't risk it myself
. He seems pretty touchy, judging by his reaction to the first post in his thread and as he has stated that he's looking for a trade, I doubt that a (relatively small) cash offer is going to make him very happy
.
If that bass is what he says it his, it should be worth nearer ?300, I would say, but then Tokai prices are all over the place at the moment so there's no telling really.
I hope this helps, but I doubt that it really does :wink: .