The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hypotheses: Vantage Japan>Korea transition period product. Vantage took the designs of the Matsu-produced models (a.o. this 'Phantom') over to Korea (possibly Cor-Tek), and ran a pilot series under brandname 'Gumika', while deciding which models could be continued, and which couldn't (quality- and cost-wise). Wietse's Gumika http://www.matsumoku.org/ggboard/viewto ... tse+gumika looks an awfull lot like the 'Ghost' http://www.matsumoku.org/models/vantage ... s/pg3.html from the same range as the 'Phantom' at that time.

Plausible?

It is possible, but a direct copy is also a possibility.

I was speaking of later 1980s Korean, not 90's and more recent. Vantage disappeared from about 1987 to the early 1990s (about 1993 or so), then re-emerged as a Korean label.

Hey GD. There is a VA800 on ebay right now and MAN - - I can see why you thought they were made in the same place. It really looks like a dead ringer. The only difference I could see was the shape of the headstock on the very top. Slightly different. And I couldn't be sure but the saddles on the Vantage look more like brass than the Gumika.

Yours with the laminated neckthru and solid woods is probably a FAB axe. And likely way more rare than the Vantage. Nothing to worry about. Get it restored and love the way it plays/sounds.

The contol cavity route looks just like that on my APII TS350. I would think that if Masumoku was winding down production they coulkd have sold the tooling to a Korean manufacurer leaving you with a near identical look.

At a decent price, I would grab it in a heartbeat and never think twice about were it came from.

Thanks guys, I'm allready feeling a lot better about this Korean.
The bridge's plate is certainly brass, so are the nut and the ferrules. And the dots in the fingerboard are made of brass, too! Not sure about the saddles yet, they seem to be gold-sprayed and discoloured. Pups are unmarked and not taped. For those looking for clues: the pots are marked 'dp', the same type as in my Arirang fat-neck-thru http://www.guitardir.com/specs.php?Node ... &Context=3
... for what that's worth as a clue ... the other day, I took the original tuners off a cheapo '80 Cort-strat, and they had 'japan' stamped into the back

K9

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

The two Cort neck-throughs I have seen had a sandwiched bodys. The headstock does not look Cort to me but I bow to those with more experience

I recently had a Cort (branded Kay for the UK market) bass with very similar construction, the body wings were single piece - I'll try & dig out some pics.

I'm guessing the headstock is just a Vantage/Matsumoku copy, speaking of which, this just popped up on the ICW board, bolt-neck & different construction, but the headstock profile & trc look identical:

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3542143

(Hope it's OK to post this sort of link. )

Jon.

behold: the (pretty ugly) product of marriage Asama/Gumika
Knobs are Gumika too, body shape is Asama, backplate is neither ... just plain weird. It keeps getting better, this quest

K9

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

Like this?

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

But spot the big difference between the Asama (+ rebrands) and the Gumika:





Clue: it ain't the stripes...


I think there was such a lot of copying going on...

J.