More from the same thread with owner's (knight_yyz) comments.
I just got this a few minutes ago. It is going up for sale in a few days. Was supposed to come with a soft shell case so I am waiting to hear back on why it didn't come with the guitar. This guitar almost looks new from the front. There is rash on the back but nothing breaks through the paint. The pickups sound better than I was anticipating. I heard Tokai's can sound a little thin. I'll be removing the PG to see if it has the U stamped pups or not. 3 bolt neck with the larger headstock. Unfortunately the decals are almost invisible. You can see it used to say Silver Star but now it is black on black instead of gold on black. Anyway on to the pictures. BTW if anyone knows where the serial number should be on this please let me know. All I can tell is that from the logo on the headstock it is pre or up to 1982.
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I can tell this guitar is made from Sen Ash. They say it is acoustically similar to alder. Which emphasizes the bass a bit more. If someone played the Tokai and the Greco back to back I could tell the difference in a blind fold test. Not saying one sounds better than the other but the Tokai definitely has more bass than the Greco with the same string gauge. The tokai also has the grey bottom Alnicos which mean they are the SS Hot version of the pups from back then. No letter U or letter E or letter S on the bottoms. I still don't see a serial number so it is almost impossible to date. I'm assuming earlier than 82 because they do have serial numbers on the headstock. I heard something might be stamped right on the fretboard. Didn't notice anything while using the bore oil treatment. I read inside the tremolo cavity, but again nothing. The only identifying mark is the letter "A" in the neck pocket and this number in the control cavity. Unless 4=7B8 or is it 4=788 means April 78? I don't see any dates on the pots either. Just the M250K ΩA. Either that or maybe the trem claw is blocking the serial. Either way its a fantastic guitar.
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I'm not worried about it being original. Just wondering about the year. Everything I have read says this label does not exist. I did read something that got me wondering though. I know Tokai made guitars for the domestic market, and that's what the Silver Stars were supposed to be for. But they also exported to certain countries like Australia etc... so I may have a country specific label?
The quality of this guitar is on par with my Fender Japan and my Japanese Greco. If you think about it, they have the Springy sound which is one of the most coveted Tokais. It's designation was St-42 and up, the Gold Stars were TST-30 and up, and the Silver Stars are SS-30 and up So whether you bought a springy sound 42 or a Gold star 42 or a Silver Star 42 , they all cost the same. 42000 yen. How is the springy sound better? They were all made around 80-85 so I don't see huge price increases affecting model numbers. I'm surprised mine is only a 48 model. It has the matching headstock and the rosewood board, both are upcharges. The only advantage a Springy Sound had was you could get a very high end model like an st-120 which you could not with a Gold or Silver Star. But up to about st-60 what difference can there be? At about st-80 and up you start getting name brand DiMarzio pickups , and nitro finishes... But as for build quality and materials..... I don;t see how there can be a huge difference
I took pictures of the neck but there are no markings. It is completely black except where the 48 sticker is near the heel. There is no bare wood. The only markings I have seen so far are in the control cavity. And I cannot find info on how to read that, although someone did suggest the BB meant black on black .
Why is it that Japanese Les Pauls have date codes on the pots, but strats don't. My Greco mint collection Les Paul Custom is dated 1990 and it is even verified by the date on the pots as being '89.
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So, I'm pretty sure this is a one of a kind. Or extremely rare. Maybe a prototype or R&D thing. Tokai silver starts did not come with painted headstocks. I searched the net and could not find one!! They are all natural color. After doing more research I am convinced I have some type of prototype or transition model.
First off, the label is one of a kind. It mostly resembles an 1982 Springy sound label. The colored headstock was available on Springy Sounds but not Silver Stars. IIRC baked maple fingerboard was stock and rosewood was an option. This is rosewood. So I think I have a rosewood Springy Sound neck at the least! I've heard so many stories of 80's fenders pieced together from different bins of parts. Tokai was the company building the early 80's Fenders so if they were mixing and matching what Fender had, and they were also doing the same thing with their own lineup of Springy Goldstar and Silver Star models, I think I have one of those mixes. But why do I have a special logo? You would think it would have had the correct Silver Star logo or the correct Springy logo, not a mashup of the two. Prototype? if so Value?
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it's actually a mish mash of Goldstar and SilverStar. A Goldstar strat has a "oldies but goldies" sticker where Fender puts contour body. Under the Silver Star logo is also the goldstar blurb " The Quality Musical instruments of the World". Silver Stars have no blurb, and no "contour body" sticker. Instead they have a serial.
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Back in 1982 you could buy a GoldStar (TST**) a Silver Star (TSS**) a Limited Edition ST**, a Custom Edition ST** or a Super Edition ST** with ** being the actual number 38-120. So after speaking with Tokai and reading posts on different forums, this is what we have come up with. The guitar is an SS48. Comes with ceramic pickups and baked maple on maple neck. But this has been upgraded with a colormatched headstock (catalog item) the rosewood board (catalog) and the alnico pickups from one of the Custom/Limited/Super editions (available in the catalog)... I don't know what Limited/Custom/Super denote, but one of them is dedicated to the CBS large head strats, and the other 2 for small headstock strats.
My label was supposed to be reserved for the SS60 model and the SS80 model. See the 1982 catalog. But there are plenty of those models with the other big font logo as well, so I guess it was not written in stone which neck got which label. It is not an SS60 neck or it would have had the vintage tuners. The reason you can't see the label is as I suspected. Black font on black paint is not visible. The label was never all Gold.
I know that painted neck guitars show up in the mid 80s as Limited or super editions, etc. but I wanted to show that the standard models were aslso occasionally made with matching painted necks after 1982.
