The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hi, I have a VS600 which I had long ago lost the original pickups from, and after looking around a bit, ordered and installed a set of Golden Age Overwound Humbuckers I ordered online from Stewart Maconald. I paid a bout 100 bucks Canadian for the pickups and a wiring kit that included pots, shielded wire etc. I'm very happy with the resulting tone.

Good luck with your new project!

Kevin

That is the plan Cmin



Thanks Kevin, appreciate the info on the pickups...

Now, while looking at them I found something weird.... Have a look at these:






The new one ( last picture ) has different tuners... Never seen these on any Vantage... The screw is underneth (have seen this) but the rest of the tuners are also different...

Any ideas or opinions ? .....

P.

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

"Specifications may change, at any time, with absolutely no notification whatsoever"

You got that so down packed, one could swear you worked there....

The more I look at the serail # and the more I tend to Think that the first digit is the year, 2nd and 3rd digit is the month and last 3 digits is production #

It would really make sense....

My 2 cents.

P.

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

For some it does but not all. Just something else for us to talk about.

You might be right!...

But... just for the hell of it, i`ll start a registry with all of mine to keep track of the serial # and will grow the list to verify if that might leed to something... Have been doing it with most Vantage that are on Ebay... We spoke of this last November ... It was the Idea of Kees and I think it might be worth it....

Actually, I have seen this on another site that is proving very succesful....

Garnet, a 60`s to mid 80Canadian Tube amp Co started a registry on the web page and it helped determine all the different versions and different brands that were made by them.... Due to that effort, you are now able to track down more info on the products to determine the wattage and quality....

Just my 2 cents....

P.

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

Sounds like 3.5 cents to me.

Is that the current exchange rate

With stamped S#'s we may be able to get somewhere but with neck plates I suspect they went into a bin and were replenished as needed. It would be easy for an old one to fall to the bottom. I have an older model Aria TS350. The first two numbers are 77. That would indicate a 1977 model as any made in 87 would have had the new 3 by 3 tuners and most likely not be an Uncle Matt (as is indicated on the plate). However the model specs, while not mentioning the 350, have 81 as the introduction year for the TS line. I think we are going to have to use several bits of information to date these guitars and may not be able to know for many.

I agree on the tuners issue. I've seen both types on several models from the same year. Looks like there were times the supplier ran out of 'Schaller M8 - position' tuners, and Matsumoku then temporarily switched to the roto's with the label pointing downwards. Guess these were a little more expensive, because they always went back to the M8's. The ones with the 'roto's' are not nearly as many, IMO.

The back plates are an other issue. It's plausible they were taken out of a crate quite randomly during production, but if there were ever plates that had been in there for three, four years already? I find that hard to believe. But we may never know for sure

Putting together a 'registry' of Snr's per model, mentioning the features that distinguish them, is still a good idea I think, and could be very helpfull clearing up certain matters. Anyone (Pierre?) who's willing to take that task upon him has my full cooperation! It will take some effort and a lot of persistance to get it off the ground though.

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http://www.GuitarDir.com has been hacked by some mindless fool, destroying years
of gathering info on guitars by non-commercial guitar lovers. Why?

I pulled the pups out of the 2nd (Variant) VA900 yesterday night.... I had not done it before like I thought since was quite surprise to find yet again two MMK53 filling the neck and bridge position.......

Now that has me wondering about the first one .... Cant remember pulling those out since I did not write it in my post about her on the board .... Will be taking her out of her case today and pull the pups out .... I really think that I did but not certain anymore... I got the first VA at the same time that I got the VSH435 and that one did have 61's ...

Great thing getting older.....



I 2nd that motion.....



What I could do is start an Excel spreed sheet and fill out all pertinent information and we could share it to build the registry... Best would be a section on the board were people could register the instrument themselves but that would mean modding the board to acomodate that.... Any Admin's to help out?.....

The up side of doing it on the board is that the wealth of info and fact finding would be Major... it would push the original creative desing and purpose of the board to it's Max..... .. Thus fufilling it's ultimate purpose and transcending it to next level of existence.....

Just my 3.5 cents....

P.

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