Old Japanese guitars appreciation thread

FelineGuitars

I loved my old Aria XX when I bought it 1985/6

TTony

Wasn't there a brand called "Kawai" around in the late 70s / early 80s??

dchwhite

The picture from @felineguitars is awesome & wins the thread  

stonevibe

dchwhite said:

The picture from @felineguitars is awesome & wins the thread  

Just for the shirt,

dchwhite

@stonevibe the shirt, the pose, the guitar, the tv - the picture is one hundred per cent Poppins

Dodge

Yamaha Lord Player 400:



Yamaha Super R'n'roller 400:



Yamaha SA700:

fnpt

I'm afraid the only japanese guitars I liked so far are the ones who are copies of Gibson and Fender models with the exception of perhaps of the Ibanez Iceman and the Yamaha SG even though these, not being blatant copies, are clearly inspired by Gibson models.

Dodge

Not quite as old, but more original.

Ibanez Talman:



Bass Collection SB310:

jonnyburgo

Arbiter thingamajig, Had a certain charm but ultimately it was  a bit shit

thomasw88

heres a pic of my Ibanez AM50.  lovely guitar, and the pickups are the only ones on any of my 'keepers' that I've not changed.   Think its a late 70's/early 80's one,

 

 

 http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/002.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/006.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/005.jpg

 

dchwhite

The Talman looks ace - and if we're allowed them from that recently, can I have one of my MIJ Starfields?

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5538/9725289132_514ddf4339.jpg

Dodge

Cor!  Dibs on the Starfield please!

dchwhite said:

The Talman looks ace - and if we're allowed them from that recently, can I have one of my MIJ Starfields?

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5538/9725289132_514ddf4339.jpg

limpymcginty

ICBM said:

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.

That trem looks like it could be the infamous Washburn wonderbar.....worse than a cheap kahler ripoff that someone put on a yamaha SG I had in Ths 90s..The washburns of that era were awful..westones are uglier but always seemed to play better..and if you'd never had a "real" guitar were a revelation amidst a sea of Kay, satellites and hondos...never got the westbury or kawai thing myself having grown up with them ...

thermionic

Vantage Les Paul copy:

I bought one in 1983 from Andy's in Denmark Street, my first decent guitar. 

bazxkr

thomasw88 said:

heres a pic of my Ibanez AM50.  lovely guitar, and the pickups are the only ones on any of my 'keepers' that I've not changed.   Think its a late 70's/early 80's one,

 http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/002.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/006.jpg

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac351/thomasw88/ibanez%20am50/005.jpg

 

 Wow, I love this style/colouring.........just works & Jap ones seem to all be peaches. All the Ibanez whether AM/AF/AS seem to glow to the eye

Very nice.....

Cheers

Baz

WezV

limpymcginty said:

That trem looks like it could be the infamous Washburn wonderbar.....worse than a cheap kahler ripoff that someone put on a yamaha SG I had in Ths 90s..The washburns of that era were awful..westones are uglier but always seemed to play better..and if you'd never had a "real" guitar were a revelation amidst a sea of Kay, satellites and hondos...never got the westbury or kawai thing myself having grown up with them ...

Nothing wrong with a washburn wonderbar (shift 2001 trem).  other than being massively overbuilt and very heavy.   They suffer from the same fate as kahlers, most of them were never fitted or set up correctly  so they end up playing like crap and getting a bad rep.   when you actually set them up right they work pretty well

But since westones and wonderbars are not popular in this thread i will add a pic of the westone i had which came with a wonder bar attached

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/WESTONE WONDERBAR/A3.jpg

luckily it still had all its original hardware in the case, although it needed a clean

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/westone1.jpg

And i managed to sell the wonderbar for more than i paid for the whole lot

WezV

I am also a big teisco fan.   they are terrible and i wouldn't wish most of them on anyone, but they have a special place in my heart

from the very cheap top twenty.  I have owned 3 of these, they play liek crap and sound pretty terrible but i still love them

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/red2.jpg

and another red one that got refinned blue and eventually parted out to make one from  the best bad bits of the others

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/blue1.jpg

to the not so cheap Spectrums.  This is one i got when i was 17.  it was a bad gold refin at the time.  I ripped frets out, filled fret slots and resulting chips with wood filler, refinned it at least twice.   all before I was 18.  i eventually repaired most of that previous damage and gave it another not so bad refin.   still never got around to fixing the top horn - this was teiscos attempt at a high end model and i would love a perfect example

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/bassfull.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/bassfront1.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/bassback2.jpg

I also had this jap-crap lapsteel that was pretty fun after a really nice rewind of the pickups  by catswhisker

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/LS2.jpg

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/ebay/LS3.jpg

limpymcginty

WezV said:

limpymcginty said:

That trem looks like it could be the infamous Washburn wonderbar.....worse than a cheap kahler ripoff that someone put on a yamaha SG I had in Ths 90s..The washburns of that era were awful..westones are uglier but always seemed to play better..and if you'd never had a "real" guitar were a revelation amidst a sea of Kay, satellites and hondos...never got the westbury or kawai thing myself having grown up with them ...

Nothing wrong with a washburn wonderbar (shift 2001 trem).  other than being massively overbuilt and very heavy.   They suffer from the same fate as kahlers, most of them were never fitted or set up correctly  so they end up playing like crap and getting a bad rep.   when you actually set them up right they work pretty well

But since westones and wonderbars are not popular in this thread i will add a pic of the westone i had which came with a wonder bar attached

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/WESTONE WONDERBAR/A3.jpg

luckily it still had all its original hardware in the case, although it needed a clean

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/westone1.jpg

And i managed to sell the wonderbar for more than i paid for the whole lot

Yep the trem on that hawk series Washburn isn't a wonderbar...its a kahler copy..I forgot how dreadfully ugly the wonder bar was...I sold these things back then and if you think Gibsons can be a bit shoddy you cant imagine how poor washburns were back then ....rubbish wonderbars ..and whe they changed to the floyd copy the d string saddle was always higher than the rest...made the buggers impossible to setup without getting a new saddle ..and that was a proper ball ache

ICBM

limpymcginty said:

That trem looks like it could be the infamous Washburn wonderbar...

No, if it had been I could have fixed the guitar. The one on it was some sort of through-routed type quite like the ones fitted to some Ibanez Roadstars (eg the Steve Lukather model) but not even identical to that. The alloy had started to collapse as this type of bridge is prone to.. and it was just too much work to fill the hole and re-rout for something else... given that the rest of the guitar was in poor shape and was hideous anyway!

I actually wonder if the one in that pic has the Kahler fitted over the top of the hole just to make it work, but even if I could have been bothered it would have been too much money to throw at it and would have looked a mess from the back anyway.

[Deleted User]

Not so 'Wonderbar' then?

Looking at the size of that thing, was if even possible to close the case?

Still, anyone who owns one now will be able to secure their retirement income from the scrap value....