The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

I agree.

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Quality service since 3:00 last Tuesday

I don't think Singer was the parent company rather they were the largest client. When they pulled their business, it was no longer viable.

I hear ya Barry.
Perspective.
If we look upon this the way we´re used to,that brings that high quality Mat guitars saw the light of day around the mid -70s. QC goin back n forth for a couple of years until they started to REALLY get their S together..and started to produce the world class instruments that blow us out of our sox to this day.
K.
That brings that,by that reasoning,Mat were basicaly going flat out or thereabouts from that time on,´til they closed shop in early 1987.Ie,basicaly no return on investments.
That would bring that the number crunchers of Uncle Mat weren´t allowed to be part of the ruling for like..7-9yrs. Might be,but not especialy probable as i see it. To the point where i´d hand a snowball in hell better odds tbh.

I recap.
It is always about the money. No exceptions. Business always boils down to that,and i presume noone wants to argue that-to the point where we can basicaly establish that for a fact.
Human greed...what can i say? Of course there´s variations to the degree of,but in general..you get the idea here. Running a high quality,reputable,business in red numbers for half a decade? Short answer to that would be no. No way even.

For investors to sit back for over half a decade to await returns..not really likely is it? What i´m saying is that across the palette Matsumoku HAS to have made money somewhere along the line of them 7-9yrs...there is no two ways about it. This regardless of any and all business policy as far as standards set and what have you not.
That you as a business tactic can take a dive from an economic POW for a while to corner certain markets,sure..but not for that long a time. Fugedaboutit.

´N yeah. This thread brings up offspins that concerns Matsumoku based on probability and reason that IMO also is of interest to all of us. Like a giant puzzle really,and by now we´re a whole bunch that can chime in.

That there were special runs made at Mat..yeah. We all know that,but that´s kind of moot and besides the point in this case.

A while back i owned a TS600 and a TS800 both. Their model numbers indicating that retail price of them were 60´ and 80´ yen respectively. The main difference between the two being that the 800 carried DiMarzio dual sounds stock. This then...advertised to attract customers,of course,and having been one of those that have had a chance to compare the two back to back...of THOSE two guitars..the 600 any day. 20 000 yen difference on the account of two pups-basicaly.
I can take that to heart. That...is business.

However,in the case of the two paulies mentioned,and there are MANY MANY MANY more instances,there a "tad" more differing between the two guitars than pups. WAY more.
Trev brings a viable idea up,and that is that it COULD be a matter of business tactics. Sure. That much MIGHT be true.
But,having that said it still comes down to businees,or for the sake of argument the lack thereof.

Don´t get me wrong boys,most of you know me well enough by now,but the thing here is that i´m really not asking for advice as far as that LC...i´m downright telling you..
There,as good as that LS-600P is (cause that it is),really ain´t no comparsion between the two. The LC is THAT much more guitar. ´N for the sake of argument call them LS-100P and LC-300 if you wish..i don´t care. I really don´t.
My point being that i have the hardest of times taking to heart that these two guitars were offered at the same penny.

Put another way.
If i were to walk into a retailer today in the market for a paulie copy and that LS600P would hang next to the LC i´d walk out the door with the LC 10 times outta ten. There is THAT much of a difference between them,and in such a scenario i´d pick the LC even if it had double the retail tag.

So.
My main Q really is,IF the serial dating holds water HOW could a guitar of that caliber be sold at that premise? How is it done?
Compare to what can be had today. Guitars as a whole has never been cheaper...´til we start hoisting the standards... Take a look at for instance an LTD EC-1000 vs an Eclipse.
Look at the discrepancy between a lower grade Vox and that HDC77 i just brought in the door. Difference in price tag,MSRP,is downright staggering and that is to the point.

Right. It was Mats' association and experience with Singer which allowed them to develop their expertise in wood selection and manufacturing excellence.

Since Singer played such a central role in Mats' success and they folded without it, could it not be argued that the small profit margins (or lack thereof) generated by the guitar division, would have been subsidized by that association? If you have a primary client essentially footing the bills it might allow you to shave margins considerably in pursuit of a competitive edge.

Another aspect to this: The Aria branding is a different condition ("white labelling") but certainly under their own Westone brand, one of the advantages Mats had was to eliminate the various middle men distributors, importers, re-branders, etc. and set up their own distribution system. The net effect of that was to reduce costs and make the retail price extremely attractive.

So, you could argue that the operating capital was generated primarily from these two sources, but lost somewhat on the Aria Pro II and perhaps even the Vantage lines in a misguided effort to promote those lines.

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"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
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Look.

The Japanese were making fine tuned wooden instruments while we in the west still lived in caves and threw rocks at each other. That they took to guitarmaking is no surprise as the nation needed every dollar it could muster as a function of rebuilding the country due to the war.

That they would regard it as "swings vs roundabout" at least i deem as rather far fetched. I still say it boils down to business,being well aware of what business tactics might put forth.

In all of this i also think that a thought to ponder is why the gave up making replicas. Yeeeeeeeees..."lawsuit" and all of that BS,but the point in case is that in such a scenario that was way eariler than 1981.

To me at least the main Q still stands. Why would Matsumoku through Shiro Aria produce instruments sans return or kickbacks? The various thoughts and themes put forth so far really doesn´t focus in any way on the important and/or imperative.
Money.

Fugedabout the LC in case for a sec. It being ontopic is not a function of the instrument per se,but more just to prove a point. A fact to all of us is that Matsumoku as a whole made fantastic,primarily guitars and basses,for the money. To this day hard to rival as some of us look at it. The thing with that is that many of us actualy played guitar/bass when these instruments were sold new,and i guess we can all attest to that we didn´t really look upon them as quality instruments at the time.
We as a group have been proven wrong,that much is also to take to heart.

So.
How could world class instruments bee manufactured and marketed at the dollar they were? As a whole now boys...
What i´m trying to say is that the revenues were hard pressed already as is,seing what they delivered vs what came back the other way. That Singer indeed was involved i believe has been proven,and that in its own rights..But the Q still remains as i see it.
If economical gain was limited as a whole,why then minimize that even further by putting guitars in the market that basicaly undersold what was already available as a reasonable cost.
Many of us,if not most,lived in the day when we walked into a music store and these instruments were hanging off a wall.

What i´m saying,still,is that i have a hard time getting the equation to even end in zero.

Add to that the various models that seem to ALL have a given first digit. What´s up with that?

I dont think any of us will ever now exactly what the profit margin was for making or retailing these instruments.
But there had to be some profit, no question.
Unless i'm missing something here, there is no argument about the retail cost being tied to the model number, eg, LC-600 = 60,000yen.
So in that case, it is a fact that they did just that, no argument.
How they did this i dont think we will never know, but history tells us they did.
Back to your LC-600 with the 0 serial, as I briefly mentioned in my previous post, it seems to me that it is highly likely that some 79 model series Aria Pro2 guitars were stamped with the next years serial first digit.
I personally think it is entirely likely that your LC could be a 900 model or above from the pre 1980 series.
How this can be proved beyond a doubt I do not know, but, as you know Jesper, the more of the early models you tear apart the more you notice the small things.
The things that make us question such things as you have done.
Man I'd love a time machine, maybe we could all chip in for one.
I saw one on Ebay a while back, the price was pretty reasonable too.

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Yeah but the flux capacitor was knackered. You couldn't couldn't travel back to breakfast time with that.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

That´s exactly my point Trev.
In this case it happens to be me that challenge the general consensus of things,and the thing with that is that if ANY of us "oldtimers" do..i for one at least take to heart that it carries merit enough to be dissected.
Agreed on the particular LC in case,but it IS besides the point. Fugedabout the friggin LC..i´m happy and content with the guitar-nuff said.

From what i´ve gathered the "yen by the number" retail was for some brands only. But agreed in the case of later Arias that their retail price was a matter of model No.
...n that IS my point. To the letter. Many of us are to this day marveled by the quality vs price of Uncle Mat guitars in general. From the entry level ones,for the most,to the highend ones they all carry something in common.
Bang for the buck.
True is that some does more than others,but in general...as a whole...Matsumoku sold very few downright lemons(yeah...i know Barry...i know.. . We´re not into bridges here tho). That is the prime reason for us being on this board/part of this community.
The thing is that from time to time i also feel it may be within reason to challenge certain "truths" of which the model designation and pricing as well as vintage are just a few.

No matter cause being one of the "select" few amongst us that has seen 30yr old Uncl Mat instruments by the hundreds by now i feel that i´m qualified enough to ask what the heck is going on-if you get my drift here and i find the questioning to be of reason.

I still Q how SOME of these guitars were retailed at the price they were. MAINLY the highend offerings then to be more specific. Just a different note...take my LS-700 transition. That is one FORMIDABLE guitar,no two ways about it,but seing its retail price-which we assume to be 70 000 yen,it stands to reason that to market a different design than the strats and paulies in reign..well in my book that brings that the LS-700 transition would offer even MORE bang for the buck than the equivalent LS-700 paulie copy.
If nothing else to be competitive.? The LS transition guitars were Lespaul...and then again not. Hence,they needed some form of edge to get sold..and please have the era in mind.
At the time we sincerly frowned upon anything japanese. Quality or design was met with the same disregard really. Ie;that enforces the idea of mine even harder as i see it.
That said the LS-600P of mine has NOTHING on that LS-700 trans. It´s a world apart,and indeed..if you ask me to pick one between the LS-700 trans and the LC above..no can do. Different guitars but about in the same league. The LC carries more bells n whistles tho..true.

Compare that to Grecos and what have you not..which in many cases,splinter for splinter,was priced higher than the Uncle Mat guitars.

To add to the confusion...me and Oscar REALLY took the Supra of his apart..and indeed it is a good PE styled guitar,but 220´yen? Gimme a break! Granted a few yrs later than the era of total confusion.
(Let it be known that Oscar bought himself a pair of Navigators too,and TBH them guitars REALLY leave me with my mind blowing in the wind!! 500 000 yen? FOR WHAT? Granted..REALLY nice Lespauls,but fivehundred THOUSANDS worth? F NO!)

If i try and sum this all up it still mainly resembles the payload from a scattergun. Its all over the friggin place...and i STILL don´t get it. I just don´t.

I´m trying to see some sort of order in this and i´m failing..at least here n there..