The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Any of you guys have any info on these?? Have a guy thats locale and says he has one from the 70's..
les paul copy and I have no idea about them.. I have heard they were made in korea and other places in the 90's.. Didn't know if they were any good or not...

I don't have a lot of information but the ones I have seen varied from poor to pretty good. Some were made in Japan and quite possibly some were made by Matsumoku. Try doing a search, I remember there being some discussion of them a few years back.

As far as buying one goes, I think you will have to really on your eyes and ears to tell the quality. That is always best anyway. You will find some poor guitars from even the best makers (especially in the used market) and some good ones from less reputable brands. A nice thing is that being relatively unknown they don't demand any kind of premium in the market.

yeah, I thought I might ride up and play it... just didnt know.. its a little ride but a decent les paul copy for 100 bucks may not be bad.... thanks man..

Somewhere I've seen a Lotus with MMKs that the owner swears are original.

I have one.

It is a Les Paul set neck in tobacco burst. It came with unmarked cream open coil humbuckers and I have since fitted a couple of Dimarzio PAFs. It has a pressed laminate arched top like other 70's Mats, brass nut, unmarked Gotoh style tuners. It is sweet, but if it were Mats, I would have expected to see some identifiable Mats pickups.

There is a Gotoh tail piece and an unidentifiable bridge. It formerly had a Bigsby, so I am not surprised that the bridge and tailpiece don't hold useful clues.

All in all. pretty nice, especially with the Dimarzios but not top notch.

Graham

I have a Lotus Headless bass, very nice model. I think mine is a Korean model, it has a thicker neck then my Cort Headless basses which makes it better in my opinion since the Cort's seem to have a small problem with larger strings... Just cant get a perfect straight neck with large string on those Corts... The only drawback, no Steinberger tuning system on the Lotus.

I have seen Japan and Korean made Lotus instruments... not certain about Mats made ones but you never know, hell we have Hondo Mat made instruments.... I am pretty certain that Lotus is a U.S. White label brand that might have instrument coming from lots of places... Best would be to try before you buy! if you are in a position to do so, all the power to you.

P.

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MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!