The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

How many Matsumoku guitars and basses are there out there?

According to Wikipedia, Terada was making 10,000 guitars a month at its peak. That was with three factories. So, if we presume Matsumoku was building the same number as one Terada factory, that would be 3333 guitars a month. Or, about 40,000 a year. If Matsumoku's golden era was about 10 years long, then that could be 400,000 Matt guitars and basses out there.

Are there any accurate figures?

If I understood things correctly, Matsumoku had more than one site for manufacturing guitars... besides that I was under the impression that Matsumoku was the second largest guitar maker in Japan at that time... so their numbers would have topped Terada's (doesn't make them rare collectors pieces in the process ).

If they were topping Terada's numbers, there could be more than a million Matsumoku instruments around the world, couldn't there?

That would explain how they can come up on ebay so often!

No one ever said those are rare.

If the serial number speculation elsewhere in the forum is correct... I have guitars that would be around #9000 for a month... and accordingly the production numbers would have been that high at least in 1984 and 1985. Anyway, that's just speculation.

I have to revisit this thread, because that comment keeps coming to mind.

Yes, people do say that they are rare. People selling them on Ebay. I've just seen a Westone Spectrum LX advert talking about "people know how rare these are". There was a "rare" Thunder 1A Guitar earlier this week. Rare this, rare that, rare the other.

I suppose that people could claim that because of the variation in specifications people can say "This is the Thunder 1A guitar with the rare brass coloured ring on the pickup selectors and the tuning machines that are a slightly reddish white when normally they are a slightly bluish white". But even so, even if there are six Thunders (or whatever) on ebay at the same time, the word "rare" keeps appearing on listing after listing.

"rare" is subjective. But there are definately some matsumoku models, built in limited quantities and/or produced for a short period only. I'd say less than 1000 guitars per model is "rare". For example: 24frets Vantage VA800s : ser.nos. from 81000 to 81999. That's rare! And less than 1000 is even more rare. Think of the Vantage VA912 or the Aria PE Neil Schon models....
One thing is obvious: the more it comes to the bottom end - to the cheaper model lines, the more guitars you can find at ebay!

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All vantage-branded guitars were lower-priced instruments aimed at the beginner-to-intermediate market. It has no interest to collectors and very little demand among players! (www.allexperts.com)

Does this mean that I have a rare VA912

When revisiting this topic... another thing comes to my mind: There are lots of companies like Hamer, that produce guitars in small batches of around 30... now this would be rare. However, they do this frequently and most guitars are a variation on a standard model... so does this count as rare?

Somehow the whole idea of buying a guitar, because it's rare is lost on me... a guitar is supposed to appeal to you visual (if you don't like the look, you will not play it anyway) and should speak to you when you play it. You may figure out that those guitars are really "rare".

Firstly, Don, I would imagine that not a hell of a lot of 912s were ever made, so yes, rare!!

I agree whole-heartedly with Wutz on this; a guitar should appeal on a much deeper level than it's relative numerical availability - none of mine are 'rare' but I like 'em a lot and play on 'em, sweat and bleed on 'em and you have to wonder if you'd do that, and indeed whether you would actually gig, a guitar that's is actually unusual enough to be worth more than the national debt?

And 'rare' in eBay talk is always subjective and a sales pitch to whip up a bit of hype; the only rare Matt that is quantifiable at the moment would be the Westone Pantera X350MA, because we know, thanks to Ton Presley, that there were only 48 made... that's rare, I think we would agree!!

Usually means: The seller didn't see another like it on ebay at the time. Not that they looked, but does that really matter?


THAT, my friends, is indeed what rare really means.
I'm sure my "new to me" CS Deluxe is not rare by production standards but it speaks volumes.