location of serial number on a tokai guitar

manufacturers apoplectic fits – perhaps no company is more respected than Tokai, whose 1970s and early-’80s Love Rock and Breezy Sound models are among the most desirable of that breed and command relatively big bucks in the collector market. For aficionados of copy guitars – replicas of mostly American classics that give U.S. Munro Article-July2008.1983 Tokai Talbo Blazing Fire, SN 3042110. In the meantime, if you haven't seen this 2008 article, you may find it interesting. Use the 'Tokai Club' thread to get hold of those folk. There are a few people on here who may be able to help you if you have a query about a specific guitar. I have never found a reliable date when the modified headstock shape appeared in the UK, but I'm confident it was in the 1990s, even though many eBay sellers claim that we had them by the mid 1980s - but these are people who believe what the Tokai Registry says! So it's a self-perpetuating mess!

Which is sort of cool, but very unhelpful from a dating point of view.Īnd although the Fender headstock shape had vanished from US market Tokai Strats by around 1983, this wasn't the case in the UK where Blue Suede Music was an enthusiastic & effective distributor, & where Fender had less influence or control than they had on home turf. This is to copy the serial number that Fender would have used on what Tokai was copying - a 1964 Strat with an L prefixed number. So a standard 1984/5 rosewood board ST50 will have a serial number prefixed with an L. So by the time the Goldstars first appeared in 1983, serial numbers were irrelevant from a dating point of view, even though many eBay sellers claim this isn't so.

The general rule is that after about 1981 when Tokai changed the types of serial numbers on Springys, you can't date them from the serial number. In fact I'm pretty sure it hasn't been updated at all for 10 years or more, so every year it becomes more irrelevant. Despite many requests, the owner refuses to update his site to reflect the European experience. We got an awful lot more here & in the rest of Europe. The major problem with The Tokai Registry is that it's US based & much of the identification information there relates to the few Tokais that made it to the US.

Location of serial number on a tokai guitar