First post, looking for some information on what I believe is a 1974 tokai?

[Homer J. Simpson]

(Red:GE100, Natural:GE500)

Looks the same to me. However, this guitar is nothing out of the industry's building blocks crate of the time, it was designed from scratch with rather odd design decisions.

Maxon PU codes I've seen are all '73 or '74 on those Ampegs and a guitar so shamelessly proudly presenting its plywood body when everyone else was either hiding or thinking about abandoning it seems to be a pretty bold statement at that time. The German carve (that was a short fad in late 60s Japan, probably due to the popularity of Mosrite) is yet another little, unexpected anachronism.

The bridge on this Tokai and the GE100s is often that old sheet metal profile construction found on e.g. the late 60s Fujigen and Mats semiacoustic designs that were made for the US importers until far into the mid-70s. It's not pretty but more functional than the othe least-cost solutions used by Kawai et al. It could be argued that they were just trying out how much production costs could be minimized with production still in Japan, and somehow not ending up looking like a $29 department store plank made in Korea.

Of course, with the guitar having "Tokai" on the headstock it seems obvious where it was made but it could be more complex than that, or completely different. Apparently it wouldn't have been the first time that Tokai bounced the electrics urges out of Texas to their next door neighbor factories either. On the other hand, like any of those factories (the list is much longer than most people think and it includes Kawai), Tokai would've been able to do something like this.

Maybe your guitar has some clues hidden inside?