Questionable Practices

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Sigmania

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It seems like there have been a couple of categories of questionable practices over the years involving counterfeit or unauthorized guitars with the Tokai name on the headstock.

One is manufacturers in Korea and probably in China that have been willing to build guitars with the name Tokai on the headstock that were not sanctioned by Tokai.

The other category would be dealers or distributors that were willing to either order or sell guitars from these factories that were not sanctioned or authorized by Tokai.
 
It’s probably impossible to sort out which factories were doing this in Korea and possibly China. But there were definitely guitars with the Tokai name on the head stock that were being made in different factories simultaneously. That makes one wonder if any of them were doing so without permission? Especially since one or more may have been in Korea after low cost production of LPs was moved to China around 2005/06.

The 2008/2009 time period stands out for me as I found many examples of "Tokais" with very different serial number schemes in that period.

The ones without a letter prefix are the biggest mystery in my opinion.
 
They where, at least, from what I know, a bunch of fake canadian made Tokai's out there. Don't know the years and/or series affected though.

Also, at the second you make something in China, a fake of it will come out. So the fact that they are chinese made Tokai imply fake made ones. But there is a simple way to discover them. They need to sold it for a low budget to make money. Doing a well rounded, well made guitar costs money and requires experienced staff, what the chinese don't have. So you will not find a upper level Tokai made by them. It will all be at chibson level of goods.
 
Yep.

As a result Active Music lost their role as the Canadian distributor for Tokai.

https://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26766

QOEsRbk.jpg


Headstock logo has a closed "a" in Tokai and the "k" is very pronounced, not like an "h".

9ux9GJQ.png
 
There are other cases where the Korean mfr was apparently producing guitars after the contract was over with Tokai, or even possibly during that time.

Big Willie Style said:
As I've said on other posts, I've visited a shop close to my house here in Korea and the owner said he used to have the contract for Tokai in Korea. He said he's been to their Japan factory a few times, yadda yadda. I know for certain he has commissioned other guitars made at the same factry that were long after Tokai moved out of Korea as I've seen them in his shop and he's showed me some in the box. Whether the bullseye and other Canadian Fakais were done in the same manner is anyone's guess. But I do know that the factory that made Tokai in Korea continued to make them for the asking, long after Tokai pulled out and moved to China.

Jason

http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10089&p=140945#p140945


Some of the Tokais that have the 6 digit serial number from 2005 seem a bit supicious.

frDqIs6.png


http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26746

As do the 6 digit serial numbers with the gold print from 2008.

KQvLPsS.jpg


http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26749
 
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/i...biggest-disappointment.2521720/#post-38140129
"Years ago a sales rep we did business with offered us a new range of Tokais. We were excited at the idea and then the samples came through and they were fantastic so we put in an order. A few months later a dozen of them show up.

We noticed the second the first box was open something wasn’t right, the headstock wasn’t the open book type the samples had. But perhaps they just had to change the headstock to fend off Gibson’s legal department? But no, these were the cheapest, crappiest Les Paul and SG copies on the market, the sort of thing we sold with other brands in the headstock for £150-200 only with Tokai on the headstock and a £4-500 price tag. We kicked up a fuss and the rep took them back.

He later told me it had been an absolute disaster and pretty much all of them got sent back, not just ours. I still don’t 100% know what happened, I’d guess the UK distributor offered Tokai a tempting offer to use the name and had some samples made up, then realised he couldn’t hit the price point he was aiming for so went for somewhere cheaper. They were certainly remarkably similar to the Westfield brand the same guy distributed."
 

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