The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

depends...looks like the guitar has steel winding posts, I know the Yamaha Dynamics with the same posts can be and are strung with either steels ot nylons...not uncommon in those days for people to use either as far as I can tell from what I see over here. Not sure I`d put acoustic steels on any of mine but like I said I had a set of electric 8s on one of my Dynamics but didn`t like how it sounded plus the uncompensated saddle didn`t help. I know Yamaha even had Dynamic strings they developed for their guitars of the same name and I`ve only ever seen them for sale once on line...I`d wager they were not useable after all these years but I would have liked to see what they were...steel or nylon. The Dynamics have very fat necks and none of mine have any neck issues whatsoever, actually the bridges on all of em show no signs of lifting either.

OK...just saw there was a browse under the pics and I went through them all, the guitar has very similar tuners to many of the older MIJs I see here from that time...some tuners on the guitasrs I bought here needed to soak over night in a bathtub cleaning liquid we have here inside a plastic peanut butter container, works very well and brings the parts back to life removing the 40+ years of crud that accumulated on many. Didn`t see a pic of whatever is written inside the guitar...did I miss some pics?

Hi,
There were no other insignias or anything to photograph. The only thing on the guitar is a label/sticker label that is located under the strings on the head right on top of the neck and it reads STEEL REINFORCED NECK....or something like that. On the back of the head it is stamped with the word JAPAN located at the top center and along the side of the head starting at the top it is stamped with what I believe is an inspectors stamp. It would be in Japanese or something and I can't read it. The writing on the signature/inspector stamp is very small and they are both very difficult to photograph. I went and searched for guitars stamped with just the word JAPAN (NOT stamped with MADE IN JAPAN) and found a wikipedia statement under Matsumoku http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantage_Guitars
It sounds like it may be one of thier first ones. The company began making guitars in the mid 50's and describes their first stamps as stated above which is what leads me to believe it was made by them. I'm just not sure about the year it was made. I'm not sure about the strings. It looks like some may be original and some may be replacements done with steel strings. There is nothing inside the body that can be seen from the outside. I've tried bringing the images in closer on the stamps but the finish keeps it from doing any good. You can see part of it better but you definitely can't see them without seeing it in person. It does have steel winding posts.
The guitar isn't being played and belongs t o my mother-in-law. She picked it up at a "Garage Sale". The things we come across at Garage Sales EH!
There are no other labels, or insignia to photograph.
After all my internet research I told her she needs to take it to a collector because it appears it is pretty unique and hard to photograph.
Thanks Again, Emma.

Sorry,
Here are the statements I found that lead me to believe they are the producers of this guitar.
"By the mid 1950s, Matsumoku began to look into other woodworking markets and, as it had on its staff several skilled luthiers, ventured into guitar and violin production. Modest classical guitars, small steel stringed acoustic guitars, and violins were built and marketed. However, as other Japanese companies were producing similar instruments, Matsumoku set out to distinguished itself by producing high quality acoustic and electric archtop guitars. Several of Matsumoku's early archtop guitars survive, most owing their basic designs to Hofner, Framus, and Gibson."
"Other neck plates were blank or simply had the word "Japan" stamped on them.
Many Matsumoku set neck guitars and basses have the inspector's hon (name stamp) stamped inside the neck pick-up cavity."
That was taken from the web link I posted in my previous reply. May-be someone will be able to identify with or clarify that info.
Thank you

Hi Emma - the problem here is that there were dozens of factories & luthiers in Japan building guitars, and the only sure way of identifying yours would be to find an identical one - either in real life or in an old catalogue, which had a known brand/maker's name on it.

This was one of the reasons I suggested you ask on the Vintaxe forum - the guy who runs it has a massive archive of vintage catalogues and it's possible that he may have one that features your guitar. Unfortunately to access the archive yourself, you'd have to pay a fee - but I've frequently seen him answer simple ID requests posted on the board.

As far as Matsumoku's concerned - that's sometimes a prickly subject around here. The general concensus on this board is that we can't really say that anything pre-1975 is made by Matsumoku - despite what Wikipedia might say, the earliest 100% confirmed Matsumoku guitars were made from '75 onward. It's not even known for sure if they built guitars earlier than that.

The whole problem with this, and trying to patch together the history of Japanese guitar-making in general, is that there were no real records kept of anything. Just some old guitars (not that many, back in the day they were regarded as cheap & throwaway) even fewer old catalogues, and some memories & anecdotes from those who are old enough to remember or sometimes, even work in the business!

So it's massively confusing trying to work out who did what. There were many factories making guitars, and there's even evidence to suggest that different factories made different parts - a body from one, a neck from another, hardware from somewhere else altogether.

It gets even more confusing when you consider all of these factories would manufacture to order - a customer might commission three different factories to build the same design - resulting in identical guitars from all of them.

I'm really sorry if I've made this even more unclear in my attempts to explain, but if you read through some of the threads on here, particularly the "Unidentified" section - you'll find this is a recurring theme! Sometimes the best you can settle for is knowing it's old & Japanese!

Jon.

well, I`m not a big fan of Wikipedia, not very reliable source in my opinion. For starters Hon means book as far as know, name stamp is called Hanko...but kanji are in constant flux...like English actually...so it may have meant name at some point in their thousands of years of history.
I don`t know much about Mats guitars so I can`t say one way or the other...I do own about 46 old MIJ acoustic nylon strings at this time and look on Yahoo Japan everyday for more...I know sick isn`t it?...I can tell you my books say the small JIS logo...Japan Industrial Standard...applied to most if not all guitars was introduced in 1963, I`ve never seen a 50s or early 60s MIJ acoustic with Steel Reinforced Neck...that came later I believe...late 60s ar even 70s...I hasten to add I`ve not seen em all yet so theres still much to learn. The mid 50s and early 60s I own have thick necks...far fatter than anyting I see produced here today so reinforcing the neck may not have been an issue at that time and may not have been perfected yet anyways. Once Yamaha made the S series Dynamics...all laminate S-50 and S-70, which still had relatively thick necks...followed by the laminated light green and finally red labels...among others, gets complicated...... necks started getting thinner and needed strengthening perhaps because they were designed for steels only...the light greens came out mid 60s and the Dynamics died out then late 60s and 70s all kinds of models appeared and the steel reinforced neck thing became common...as always, theres plenty of wiggle room in this, even the Japanese guys who write the books have difficulty getting precise data mainly because the folks who were involved in building those guitars are long retired or passed on and record keeping was a shambles by today standards.
It is true most MIJ stuff I saw in the five and dime stores as a kid looked like it was going to break before we got it to the car, but when it comes to acoustic guitars...there were many excellent models made...the fact that so many still exist may be proof of that...might just be they exported their junk to us gaijins and kept the good stuff in country...but there was no shortage of low end kindling made too...I mean a LOT. But there were some builders who were making top notch guitars too and those are just now getting more collectable over here.
So is the guitar in question going to be a decoration or will you get to play it?

I want to thank EVERYONE for responding and helping. I will settle for old and Japanese with no problem. My mother-in-law will just have to take it to a collector for info than that. I am sure it will only be used for decoration. I do not play my-self. She bought it for my Uncle who plays but decided she may keep it. Funny how that goes.
I'm not really a fan of wikipedia either but when I searched for "guitar JAPAN ?????" the search engine came up with the link.
Thanks again, emma.

..what a beautiful description of the Japanese guitar building era; thanks guys; I don't think I've ever seen it put quite so succintly!