The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Polytone is well-known in the jazz community for their amps. They did a series of guitars for ten minutes in @1980, built by Mats. From memory:
- "Contempo" solidbody guitar;
- "Contempo" solidbody bass;
- "Improv II" semi;
- "Improv I" hollowbody archtop.

More to come, including a scan of the original tearsheet complete with Pat Martino endorsement.
Here's one - a Contempo solidbody guitar:

Here's a thumbnail of the tearsheet. Gotta find that scan....:

Resting comfortably on a Polytone 102. Black velvet rewlz:

Front:

The Contempo's gorgeous - but I don't think it's a Matsumoku. It's a re-badged El Maya EM1200:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/l ... middel.jpg

- with block inlays & a different headstock.

Unless the available info's incorrect, El Maya & Maya were brands owned by the Rokkomann trading company, which had its own factory in Kobe. This factory was allegedly destroyed in the Kobe earthquake in the 90s.

I hope you can find the full scan - I'd love to see the Contempo bass.

Jon.

I agree.
Looks like a deadringer for the El-Maya 1200.
We´ve had a couple up for sale around here,and i gave some though to picking one of them up.
Matsumoku however they´re not,albeit from many respects just as nice guitars.

I believe one of the subcontractors for Kobe was Chuchin?

Fascinating. The Contempo is clearly from Rokkomann/Kobe and has El Maya EM1200 written all over it. I read some related comments on other forums about El Maya/Maya/Rokkomann/Kobe and it looks like an interesting and dimly lit corner of Furutama.

I don't own that guitar but do own the two f-hole guitars and had figured them to be Matsumoku guitars because of the way they are built. I'll post some bigger pix of them for comments and opinions regarding their provenance.

Found it! Here's the Polytone tearsheet, front page:

backside:

Thanks for sharing Very nice instruments and quite obscure...

P.

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