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Here are some of my new Tokai collections.
1.JB50
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2.PB80 FM neck
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3.PB80
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4.TPB80
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this is a real sweetie.

as arrived
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new La Bella flats and a clean up later. Under the logo, at the right angle of view, can be seen the remains of the so called lawsuit logo, that was removed before this was shipped out of the factory.
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new bridge for now, I think the original, now that it is all shiny again will be going back on soonish!

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Tokai APB-COBRA YUICHI MODEL 2012. This is a Tokai Bass. It has Tokai on the back on the headstock. I bought this straight from Tokai a few years ago. They custom made this for a Japanese band called Cobra. So, that is why they have Cobra on them. Anyways, I upgraded the color of the pickguard from White, added Delono pickups, added a active Noll 4 band preamp and battery case in the back and a Babicz bridge on it. This thing screams now. Has a rock growing sound to it. I love this bass now.

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HI!!! This may sound strange, but... after a few weeks of being "quarantined"... I noticed this "signature/engraving", under the clear coat of My VSB-60. Does anyone recognize the name/significance? It is OBVIOUSLY under the poly, and NOT refinished.

It's making My crazy!!!

Help?

Thanks,
Marc

Sorry. Having difficulty posting pic.
Name seems to read, "Fumihiko Yamamoto!!"
I'm not screaming. The 2 exclamation points are after the name.

I'll try again to post pics.

Many thanks, AGAIN.
Hope everyone is well,
Marc
 
Use a picture hosting website, like (Imagebb) then it's easy.

The only thing I can find for that name is that he was an Artist but whether this has any connection to the guitar or Tokai, not sure..
 
warnan said:
Here are some of my new Tokai collections.

Hi!

Nice basses!

What is the difference between PB80 and TPB80? Just older vs. newer?


Best,
 
1981 JB65, Metallic Green, beautiful rosewood fingerboard.
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1978 PB65, it plays fast and truly a funk machine!
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ealy 80s JB45 Custom Edition. Light weight and sounds good.
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Super Rare JB120. Brazilian rosewood fretboard. gray bobbin. nitro finish.64jb replica.
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These are some of my collections. too many to list :D
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Here are my collections of vintage tokai basses. Will add more pix. Peace! 8)
https://ibb.co/album/C3ZjgN
 
Amazing collection. I like the metallic green one. That’s a rare color. I have an ST75 in that color. Very cool.

And the JB120…. Did not even know such a thing existed.

Amazing…
 
Sigmania said:
Amazing collection. I like the metallic green one. That’s a rare color. I have an ST75 in that color. Very cool.

And the JB120…. Did not even know such a thing existed.

Amazing…

Thanks!
Yeah, MG is pretty cool color!
 
A few that have come through here...



1981 VSB-60CSR Love the Dusty Hill vibe of these.



1985 TJB-45MRR refin with mods. Nice pewter-blue metallic refin over MR. The original pickguard was white 3-lam but covered with silver foil. It was basically a mass of scratches after I finally got the foil off, so I used a torty guard I had lying around instead. Non-original tuners as well, the same type as the ones on the VSB-60, with small housings and heart-shaped grips. Lovely bass, should have been a keeper, but I've decided against collecting basses as well... I think. :)



1984 TPB-40OWR. One for the punk rockers and another great bass.



1982 PB-50MRR (?). Not actually completely sure about the model of this one. I sold it several years ago to a friend without really documenting it properly. MR wasn't a standard finish below PB-50 at that time, but it does have the small, three-screw tuners, so it could be PB-40 with MR as a custom finish and so upgraded to 45 as well. Pity about the trashed logo decal.
 
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1984 TPB-40OW

Another punk rocker, with a maple neck this time. It was pretty close to mint condition, minus a vandalised headstock decal that needed replacing. What's wrong with ppl?



 
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That's the colour my 62 P Bass was until it nearly all fell off by the mid 70's but I sold it to fund other things :cry:
 
Here's a bit of a mystery: a fretted TJB that left the factory without a pickguard. But that's not the only odd thing about it.

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Look, no screw holes!

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The headstock has the curly black Custom Edition logo, first seen on various super strats etc in the 1986 catalog. In the '87 catalog, this style appears seemingly at random on a couple of the few vintage style instruments pictured.

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The tuners are the large, four-screw, reverse-wind type seen on higher models (-60 and up, I believe?). No extra screw holes or pressure marks in the clear coat underneath, so no signs of tampering.

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The serial is six digits beginning with 22. That's close to a couple of TST's with 1987 pot codes I've had. Sadly, the pots in this one is the undated type with just a rubber-stamped Ohm number.

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The neck and body stamps are mismatched. The neck is 12 = 4...

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...while the body appears to be 4 - 2. It's slightly smudged, but it looks like a dash separating the digits, not a =.
Now, I'm not at all sure about the chronology of the change from a = to dash, but looking through my records, I have had a TST-50 with July1985 pot codes with a dash stamp on the neck, a = in the body and matching numbers. So, if we assume that the change happened during 1985, why does this neck have a stamp style that ended in 1985 and logo introduced in 1986? I've never seen a repro of the curly black logo and there is no sign of any sanding or respraying, so I would have to assume that the logo is original to the neck.

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I have frankly no idea what the pickups are. I couldn't prise the covers off, but they appear to have black bobbins. I've only had a single TJB before, a 1985 -45, and that had grey bobbin pickups with a brass plate underneath the rubber block.

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So, what can it actually be?
Well, there is one obvious candidate catalog model, the bombastically designated TJB45S-AMRR. Pic from the 1985 catalog. No pickguard, obviously available in MR, but the pic shows it with at least a matching headstock, and I would assume that AMR stands for All Metallic Red, in which case it would have a painted neck as well. So, it could definitely be one of those with a replacement neck.

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But there are others and much more closely matching basses around out there as well.
This one is in a 2010 Talk Bass forum post. There are no internals, but it's a good match externally, with the large tuners and six-digit serial. It has a standard script logo Jazz Sound headstock decal, though.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/pickguard-colors-question-on-a-candy-tokai-jazz.717930/

Here's a Faber sales ad with another variation on the theme: it's got the Custom Edition logo and is generally similar, only with the smaller three-screw tuners. I can't quite make out the serial, but there are six characters in it, but I'm not sure if it begins L1 or 21. Quite were the "1984 JB50" comes from I' can't say though.

https://www.faberguitar.com/Tokai-JB50-MRR-1984-Jazz-Bass-CE-L63_1

And there are a few others out there as well if search. A couple have the large tuners but most the small ones, at least one has a 45 sticker still in place. Script logos seem more common but there are others with Custom Edition as well. And similar ones do turn up for sale in Japan from time to time, so probably not super-low production numbers, it seems.

So, just a parts bass or another oddity from Tokai's strange and troubled mid-80s? To my mind, the jury's still out on that and I suspect it's likely to remain so. Either way, it's - hardly surprising - and excellent bass. I won't hang on to it though, but that's more a matter of me being a non-bassist with a limited amount of space in my home than anything else. :D

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