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Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 5:34 pm
by Kniferide
randomonion wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:43 pm
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I wouldn't change a thing about that guitar.

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:08 pm
by twelvepoint
I like that the last polepiece on the neck PU is 1/2” past the high E string

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:09 pm
by Kniferide
twelvepoint wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 7:08 pm I like that the last polepiece on the neck PU is 1/2” past the high E string
For optimal mojo

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:10 pm
by tallchris
Always love the guitars that look like someone closed their eyes and tried to draw a Mosrite from memory and then just said fuck it, that's the guitar.

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 5:09 pm
by numberthirty
Looks to me like somebody must have been a Dixie Dregs fan...

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Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 5:36 am
by randomonion
Moving along, this arrived, shown after a clean up. Not so bizarre in that it pretty much just tries to copy a Mosrite but ... Sappho Gakki Co Ltd??? That is who made it in Japan. And it's the MAX REGER model???? Only Max Re3ger I can find was a German composer who died during WW1. Almost everything on this guitar is weird apart from the tuners.
Pickguard material for a nut, Framus style headstock/neck join (I've never seen THAT from Japan before), weird neck plate, odd pickup internals, heavy decorated plate with regular 60's era vibrato bolted top of it, Bridge appears to use cut up bolt threads.

Where is 'sleepkid' when you need him!

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Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:37 am
by twelvepoint
That Mosrite is amazing. Are we looking at a laminated bamboo neck here?

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 9:05 pm
by randomonion
twelvepoint wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:37 am That Mosrite is amazing. Are we looking at a laminated bamboo neck here?
Huh! I had not thought of that! Not much of a wood expert.
Pretty sure that this is late sixties /early 70's. Would they have used Bamboo like this then?

The name 'Sappho Gakki Co Ltd' appears on some early traditional Japanese harp instruments (those things with strings and what look like typewriter keys).
There is also a Mory guitar called a Sappho 3 but I don't believe it had anything to do with Sappho Gakki.

Also, do the Japanese mean Sappho the early Greek woman poet from the island of Lesbos, (and, supposedly and somewhat coincidentally, a lesbian herself and a heroic figure to lesbian women down through the ages), or is this a Japanese word meaning something entirely different?

It does look like bamboo now you mention it!

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:19 am
by tommy
randomonion wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 9:05 pm
twelvepoint wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 7:37 am That Mosrite is amazing. Are we looking at a laminated bamboo neck here?
Huh! I had not thought of that! Not much of a wood expert.
Pretty sure that this is late sixties /early 70's. Would they have used Bamboo like this then?

It does look like bamboo now you mention it!
My guess is sapele. It definitely looks like the bamboo flooring in my house though!

Re: Bizarre Japanese guitars

Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2022 9:58 am
by Mason
Incredible guitar. Sapphic as fuck!