Gibson lp v Tokai lp: which to buy

rolls1392

I have played a top end Tokai, £1600ish.
It was bloody marvellous. 
But I'm  in no hurry and try both Gibson and PRS.

BloodEagle

Ive had a Tokai LS200, so fairly high end, was a nice guitar, played well enough, but realistically it was not as nice as any Gibson Les Paul Ive ever owned. Get an R8 or nice Custom and there is no comparison at all

bodhi

Tokai might make fine guitars, but if I personally bought one I know I'd just end up wishing it was a Gibson.  Because I'm simple like that and don't have the energy to convince myself otherwise.

crunchman

goldtop said:

Except you missed the part where I said £ for £. I've owned three Tokai Love Rocks (LS-50, LS-75 and LS-320) and something like 8 Gibson Les Pauls, from vintage, through Classics to Custom Shop. I've still got three Gibsons. I've also got a high-end replica.

When considering the same cost, the Gibsons are nowhere.

The bit I've put in bold shows how strong your bias is. Instead of bothering to find out how good/bad a high-end Tokai is, you prefer to remain ignorant. Not sure how that attitude helps inform the thread!

If you are talking £ for £ then the PRS SC245 in the classifieds at £1100 would knock the socks off most Tokais.   Maybe the really high end Japanese ones would be of equivalent quality, but I'm not sure they would be any cheaper.

If you are talking new, then you have to look at resale.  I've sold too many "dream guitars that I'll never sell".  Waiting for the end of year blowout on a Les Paul Traditional is a better financial deal.  When I bought my current Les Paul, I actually ended up with an R8, but I tried about a bunch of Traditionals that were knocked down to £1200.  A new Japanese Tokai would probably have set me back £1000 at the time.  Given the difference in resale, and that fact that I could live with the Burstbuckers in a LP Traditional, but not the overwound Tokai pickups I'd go for the LP any day and it would make financial sense to do so.

Given that I'd prefer most Traditionals I've played to my old Tokai it makes sense from a playing point of view as well as financial.

Where Tokai normally score is when you can get them second hand, because the resale is so bad on them.  While I'd prefer a LP Traditional to a Tokai, the Tokai is still a very good guitar and might be half the price second hand.  A second hand Tokai will knock spots off most other things in it's price range.  Thankfully there are enough people who have the "I'll never sell this guitar" delusion who are willing to buy new, that some of them still come up second hand.

Boromedic

God don't bring up the end of year Gibson blow outs!! Every year I fight the urge to buy another one at the knockdown prices, it gets harder and harder to do. I need to remove myself from the email lists of all guitar and cycling shops I think!

rolls1392

bodhi said:

Tokai might make fine guitars, but if I personally bought one I know I'd just end up wishing it was a Gibson.  Because I'm simple like that and don't have the energy to convince myself otherwise.

Good point. Have  a wis.

Bennyboy-UK

Good job Gibson haven't been reduced to a lunatic brand making ridiculous oddball guitars and hundreds of pointless seemingly random editions, with equally pointless and random features......

https://reverb.com/news/gibson-announces-custom-shop-les-paul-with-built-in-overdrive ;

...oh.

Fretwired

lustycourtier said:

Had hi End models of both. Liked owning the tokais, just not the resale. Gibson all day. 

This.

If it's a keeper for life then fine, but a Gibson will hold it's price better. You can get a great second-hand Gibson for £2K.

57Deluxe

also - those VINTAGE brand top end LPs sound pretty good too...

bodhi

I think the best is probably always going to be to hit the shops, play as many guitars as you can, and then pick the one which you really like.  It might end up not even being a Gibson or a Tokai.

The last time I did that I had no intention to even look at anything Gretsch, but there was a red Panther on the wall which I tried just for shits and giggles.  It was such a killer guitar.  Budget couldn't quite stretch that far at the time, though.

sunshinewelly

I owned a lovely LS160 which was on par with the R9 i later owned. however nothing beats seeing GIBSON on the headstock. i have actually sold the R9 as i find that it was no better or worse than the Gibson signature T model i had. i have now picked up a slash rossa corsa which plays nicer than all of the above, you therefore can get gold without having to pay top prices for a R8 or R9

underdog

sunshinewelly said:

I owned a lovely LS160 which was on par with the R9 i later owned. however nothing beats seeing GIBSON on the headstock. i have actually sold the R9 as i find that it was no better or worse than the Gibson signature T model i had. i have now picked up a slash rossa corsa which plays nicer than all of the above, you therefore can get gold without having to pay top prices for a R8 or R9

I've been laughed at for saying it before but if you want great Les Paul look at the slash signature models, yet to play one that was anything other than excellent and really they are pretty much LP standard money.

bodhi

sunshinewelly said:

I owned a lovely LS160 which was on par with the R9 i later owned. however nothing beats seeing GIBSON on the headstock. i have actually sold the R9 as i find that it was no better or worse than the Gibson signature T model i had. i have now picked up a slash rossa corsa which plays nicer than all of the above, you therefore can get gold without having to pay top prices for a R8 or R9

I've had the pleasure of owning some really nice historic reissues (Les Pauls, SGs, 335), but I found that I hit gold with the Gibson Standard Faded and Traditional Faded Les Paul models.  They are my firm favourites and IMHO a great platform for any upgrades you might have up your sleeve.

If I was the OP I'd find one of those and upgrade it to be exactly the way I think I want it in terms of hardware, pickups, and electronics.  And still have some spare cash afterwards.

goldtop

So there you have it: simple brand loyalty means you choose a guitar on something other than its merits, and it's easier to resell. Fair enough; brand is important, important enough for SRV (even) to airbrush out the Tokai logo on the Texas Flood album cover, after all.

> You can get a great second-hand Gibson for £2K.

Indeed you can. But until you've compared it to an equivalent £2k used Tokai, we're back where we started.

Boromedic

goldtop said:

So there you have it: simple brand loyalty means you choose a guitar on something other than its merits, and it's easier to resell. Fair enough; brand is important, important enough for SRV (even) to airbrush out the Tokai logo on the Texas Flood album cover, after all.

> You can get a great second-hand Gibson for £2K.

Indeed you can. But until you've compared it to an equivalent £2k used Tokai, we're back where we started.

Who has said that? You're just twisting it to fit your argument, lots of people in the thread including myself have commented that there are great Japanese Les Paul copies out there. Play a number of guitars and find the one that fits for you, which is the key point here. That might be a Tokai, it might be a PRS, hell maybe it might even be a Gibson but find one that talks to you personally.

There are Tokais out there that are great and in your opinion an equivalent Tokai will be better, however there are a lot of people who disagree and you're qualifying it with "well if you've never compared it to a £2k Tokai you're talking shit". No one is disagreeing with you about them being great guitars but they are a Les Paul "copy", some people including me would rather have the real thing. Not because they are worse, I would put my 1999 Standard against all others because its mine and I love it, but because that is their choice. Stop criticising people for making personal choices, it's got naff all to do with brand loyalty there's enough of us questioning the brand in this thread and others. Gibson has made and continues to make great guitars, the op has expressed he wants a Gibson and will try some others along the way. Give it a rest with the Japanese flag waving, there's only one person on here being inflammatory and waving brand loyalty in everybody's face and it's you.

P.s. Who cares what guitar is on that cover, his number one guitar and number 2,3,4, & 5 were all Fender Strats so thats brand loyalty for you.........

BloodEagle

Face facts - someone playing a Gibson looks way cooler than someone playing a Tokai - ergo, Gibson wins. Try to say that it doesn't matter to you, but your not fooling anyone. I make most of my gear purchases based on how cool it looks, not an exaggeration at all - this also why I will never buy a PRS or Suhr etc etc, regardless of how well they play. It's a happy accident( or is it?) that the coolest looking guitars are also the best playing and best sounding. And if price is an issue for you by all means go for the budget option, but not everyone is constantly trying to save money and occasionally they want to spend big bucks on the full fat real deal.

bobliefeld

little history lesson for you.  back in the 80s Tokai used to make great les pauls but then the lawsuit era happened and gibson ruled that Tokai can no longer make good ones.  Every Tokai thats made has to be legally checked against a Gibson of similar price.  if it has superior tonal qualities or feels nicer (in a legal sense) then the tokai has to be destroyed.  thats why law suit era ones are worth a lot on ebay.  if you buy a post lawsuit era tokai then you're a mug mate.

Bennyboy-UK

bobliefeld said:

little history lesson for you.  back in the 80s Tokai used to make great les pauls but then the lawsuit era happened and gibson ruled that Tokai can no longer make good ones.  Every Tokai thats made has to be legally checked against a Gibson of similar price.  if it has superior tonal qualities or feels nicer (in a legal sense) then the tokai has to be destroyed.  thats why law suit era ones are worth a lot on ebay.  if you buy a post lawsuit era tokai then you're a mug mate.

I've never heard about that before - have you got sources I can read up on that and learn some more? I had read that the lawsuit also affected only US territory.

Cheers,
Ben.

Three-ColourSunburst

To my mind, the question is, 'What is most important, buying the 'right' badge' or buying the best made guitar for the money?

I would always ignore the branding and look at the instrument, and so would almost certainly buy a top-flight Japanese model, knowing that, wherever I buy it from, I will almost certainly get a 'good' one at a justifiable price and won't have to embark on a long search for a Gibson version that has actually been put together in a way that reflects the price tag, let alone the '1 in 10' that Gibson supposedly gives some sort of magical mojo to.

Another reason for thinking this way is that I regard the links between the current owners of the Gibson trademark and the original Gibson company as being little more than marketing spin. To my mind the only 'genuine' Les Pauls are those that were made by the now long-dead original Gibson company in Kalamazoo.

Today's Gibson company is by all accounts dreadful to work for with a poorly motivated workforce and, let's face it,  it is in the 'copy' business as much as any maker of 'Chibsons'! The only real difference is that it just happens to have legal title to the seemingly all-important 'Gibson' brand name and some almost irrelevant specifics of the shape of the guitar. Being able to exploit the Gibson brand name and the legacy of those guitars made by what to most intents and purposes was an entirely different company, in a different location 60 years ago is the only thing that keeps the company afloat as it lurches from one disaster to another.

(OK, to be fair Gibson is also an innovative guitar maker, offering the public such such things as the Firebird X, the Dark Tiger and robo-tuners. Enough said!)

The only downside to refusing to be a 'brand whore' is that so many others are, and as a result the resale values for guitars that don't have the 'right' name on the headstock might not be so good.

FGN also make some good 'LP shaped' bits of wood and their quality should be on a par with an Ibanez prestige, which they also make. Plenty around on the German market (which always values quality) including some from Thomann, although they don't seem to stock the top of the range models such as the LS30, which is pretty comparable to a Gibson vintage reissue. Others do, for example:

http://www.lkg-guitars.de/gitarren/fgn-guitars-made-in-japan/fgn-neo-classic-ls-30-faded-vintage-violin-incl-high-quality-lifton-case-l160792/

Here are the base and mid-range models. I would probably go for one of these, especially seeing as the main difference between these and the LS30 is that the top of the range one has a solid flame maple top, rather than plain maple, or plain maple with a flame veneer.

http://www.lkg-guitars.de/gitarren/fgn-guitars-made-in-japan/fgn-neo-classic-ls-10-plain-faded-cherryburst-incl-lifton-case/

http://www.lkg-guitars.de/gitarren/fgn-guitars-made-in-japan/fgn-neo-classic-ls-20-heritage-darkburst-l121079/

Some nice galleries of the low and mid range FGN 'LP' models here:

http://www.guitarsrebellion.com/crbst_608.html

Rocker

It might appear trivial but if you intend to play your new or used Gibson/Tokai/etc standing up, bring your guitar strap with you. Simulate, as closely as possible, how the guitar is going to be played.