Old Japanese guitars appreciation thread

Lixarto

I'm liking that Blackmore Strat - have a "wow"

bazxkr

Thks Lixarto... I only just picked it up after a long time looking... lots of Mexicans but very few Japs about in good nick. You don't know how many sleepless nights I'm getting dreaming about the Blackmore Engl Jack G has for sale on here to go with it so I got a set haha.... 100w Engl will blow my f*****g roof tiles off my house LOL

 

I'm a huge Mr B fan.... too many posters of him up in my musicroom makes it embarrassing when I get visitors haha

 

Cheers Baz

alalalkasar

">Squier E series jazz bass that I have owned for 19 years and is a thing of joy to play, wouldn't swap it for anything.

Lixarto

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v349/Lixarto/558159_10200425943507670_360511356_.jpg

OilCityPickups

The amazing 'Magma' finishes on some of the Arias ... mmmm tasteless ... yeah a bit ... but really cool to have one. Shame the semis are as rare as rocking horse poo

WezV

I like westone thunders... for the price!   considering you can pick them up any day of the week for about £150 i think they are great.

Their constructions is much better than any new guitar at double that price and teh woodwork will certainly be neater under the hood

I can see why some people don't like them.  the design is not very graceful, the pre-amp is noisy and unusable in many positions, the frets are relatively soft and often well worn,  they went for a thin finish in an age of thick high gloss  and they are usually far too heavy for the small guitar they are.   

As long as you leave the pre-amp close to its centre notched positions (or bypassed completely) they sound pretty good... for the money.

dean2371

Here is my Antoria Viking, my first proper guitar bought in 1974 or possibly 1975. Pickups changed to Mighty Mite something or others with coil splits. Looked cool, but like all these shaped guitars really annoying to play! I coveted my mates Antoria strat copy which was ace. I did like the neck on the Viking though.

Lixarto

I may be entering a mid-life crisis, but Vs and Explorers are looking more and more tempting lately.

Have a "wow".

dean2371

thank you. Funnily enough I've been eying up my son's Jackson V shaped guitar which he no longer plays, and am contemplating building an Explorer! Definately an age thing

Lixarto

I feel a thread coming on ...

OilCityPickups

I've always liked Vs ...had a coloured marzipan one on my wedding cake

scrumhalf

No photos, but my old Japanese haul includes a Westbury Standard (stonkingly good guitar), Westbury Custom and an Aria TA-65 in white with a glued neck and a Bigsby. Not sure if the Yamaha electric 12-string is Japanese, or that old.

j_r

daveyh said:

Bucket said:

daveyh said:

Bucket said:

Some not-so-obvious stuff now - a particular favourite, the rare Westone Thunder III:

http://manningsmusicals.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/picture-0014.jpg

It's interesting how this guitar, thought of as shit at the time (at least by every guitarist I knew), now seems to be a popular collectors ite.

This is the high-end one... neck-thru, 24 frets, active electronics, fancy woods etc. I've played one and it was pretty nice.

No, they were laughed at. A guy I knew had one like that and he couldn't give it away.

I had one, from the first batch imported at the end of 81. Never really got on with it, just seemed very unresponsive, although it had a decent neck profile. The Thunder III bass was very popular though.

Lixarto

scrumhalf said: Aria TA-65 in white with a glued neck and a Bigsby.

Photos required for this one please

ICBM

TheGuitarWeasel said:

The amazing 'Magma' finishes on some of the Arias ... mmmm tasteless ... yeah a bit ...

Dear god... my eyes!

:-O

I can just about tolerate that finish on a solidbody (it is at least representative of its era), but on a semi... all kinds of hideously wrong!

Speaking of hideous I also briefly had one of these:

http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt263/joenamy/DSCN2592.jpg

I was given it for free - it was in poor condition and had some kind of Washburn patent tremolo on it (although that one seems to have a Kahler) which was buggered and was totally non-compatible with any other unit ever made as far as I could tell. I stripped the usable bits off and killed it with fire. (Seriously.) It's probably a rare and valuable guitar now.

[Deleted User]

j_r;41357" said:

The Thunder III bass was very popular though.

I bought a Thunder 1A bass in 1983.

I used it on demos for years. It was great for a guitarist; a full scale length bass, with an almost Alembic-like small body. The active pre-amp was great for DI. I can't remember what I paid for it, but it was cheap. A real 'honest', value-for-money instrument....

koneguitarist

Loved my Aria ES650 bought on HP from Gamlins in Cardiff in 1980ish http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i278/bargoedboy/ariaES650.jpg

Bucket

dean2371 said:

Here is my Antoria Viking, my first proper guitar bought in 1974 or possibly 1975...

That looks really cool - I assume it's a fairly close cousin of the Ibanez Rocket Roll, which is now worth a small fortune...

And @Lixarto, I think you should get a late-70s, MIJ Electra 2236 and channel your inner 80s Hetfield:

http://thisisnotatest.com/images/ElectraVee.jpg

Nitefly

Not really "old" (as far as I can work out it was built in 1990), but the blonde on the left is my Yamaha SA-1100:

Later pic:

dean2371

I hung on to that Antoria until about three years ago, then sold it. I didn't get a small fortune for it though. The dealer I sold it to later told me that the guy he sold it to painted it black. Seemed the right thing to sell it at the time, but I wish I'd kept it.