Japan Vintage "brand names"

[OrvilleBoy]

I onced owned a TEMPO guitar that was supposedly from the 1970s made in Japan? It was a cross between a Gibson 'The Paul' (same body contour; natural, lacquer only body, with pick up selector next to control knobs like The Paul, but with only two knobs) and a Gibson Custom neck (binding on neck and headstock, with block inlays from the 1st fret space). the neck was bolt on. I traded it for an Orville '94 Les Paul Std!

Anyone else heard of Tempo?

[japanstrat]

Matsumoku made Aria, Westone, Epiphone Japan (first series before Yamano), Westminster (distributed by Kanda Shokai), some Greco Fender and Gibson copies from the 1970's, Vantage, Univox, Westbury, Skylark, Lyle, Fell, Electra, Washburn.
Chushin made Jackson, Azumi.
Morris made Morris, Bill Lawrence, H.S.Anderson.
ESP made Navigator, Zep-II, Edwards.
Kasuga made Ganson, Heerby, Kasuga.
Guya made Guyatone and were distributed by Tokyo sound corp.
Tokai made Sigma and were distributed by Martin.
Chushin probably made Fresher and Camel guitars and they were distributed by Kyowa-Shokai (not Kanda Shokai) who also distributed some Jackson models in Japan.
Cimar were made by FujiGen and also in Korea. The Cimar guitars were produced by Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez).
CSL and Antoria were imported by various music shops in the UK and are basically the same as Ibanez and some Korean models were probably made.
Profile were distributed in the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and were made in Japan and Korea. The Made in Japan Profiles were probably made by Matsumoku.
The Japanese Profiles have Made in Japan stamped on the neckplate and the Profiles that don't have Made in Japan stamped on the neckplate are made in Korea with some having plywood bodies.
There are also Profile effect pedals from the same distributor.
Terada were made by Terada and distributed by Daion.
Harptone were imported from the US and distributed by Daion.
Chaki, Hamox, Mitsura Shinano, Tamura, G.J. Gould & Sons were distributed by Daion.
Joodee, Founder, Daion and Yamaki solid bodies were were made by Dyna Gakki and distributed by Daion and the Yamaki and Daion Acoustics were made by Yamaki and distributed by Daion.
Joodee, G.J. Gould & Sons, and others were built to specifications of small USA distributors (MCI Texas) and often had the same model numbers as their Yamaki counterparts.
Gaban distributed by Hukuhara musical instrument company and probably made by Tokai.
Gallan were distributed by Kyowa-Shokai (not Kanda Shokai) and probably made by Tokai.
Gession were made by Tokai.
Grandy were probably made by Tokai.
Gibbon were probably made by Tokai.
Maya and "El Maya" and Bambu were brand names used by a Japanese Trading Company from Kobe called Rokkoman. The Maya and "El Maya" and Bambu guitars were probably made by Chushin.
Pearl were distributed by the Pearl Drum Company. The Pearl logo font on the guitars is the same as the Pearl logo font that's on the drums.
The Pearl Les Pauls were made by Matsumoku and the Pearl Acoustics were made by Hayashi Gakki.
Cortez were made by Matsumoku and some have the same headstock inlays as the Pearls.
The Cortez name comes from Jack Westheimer who founded Cort in Korea.
Rockin' Robin were an American brand and were made by Tokai at the start and then ESP and Chushin http://www.robinguitars.com/history.html.

After a while all these strange branded guitars follow a pattern.
Music shops, companies producing machinery or whatever or business people would choose a brand name often with a Spanish sounding name like Gonzales or Fernandes and contract someone to make them and then they would try to distribute them.
They could just distribute them in Japan and get along quite well because the Japanese market is pretty big and they could also try to distribute them to other countries which would have been harder and not many survived doing it but of course Hoshino/Ibanez did.
Only a few of these brands have survived and some brands have been brought back by other companies after buying the rights to the brand name.
Also some USA and UK distributors would have guitars made in Japan with their own brand name like CSL etc.

[muzzer]

here is a test for you japstrat "tender" super sound
do you know any thing about them.well its not realy a test but I have one and know nothing,It plays well and has the fender headstock and fender logo but they did not cross the F so its a T

[sneakypete]

I`ve seen Tender on Yahoo Japan.
Heres are some...once these get catalogued...I`ve got a few dozen more to post...

[sneakypete]

[sneakypete]

this is a recent builder who has appeared on the Japanese scene. Interesting name for a Fender clone company don`t you think?

[Roger]

Wow ... Thanks sneaky ...

YES ... the name is funny ... he's a joker !!!

Roger

[japanstrat]

I just saw a Japanese Nabish Electric which looks a bit like a Takamine Electric.
The only things I can find out about Nabish is that they had an Acoustic called the BeeBird (funny variation of HummingBird).

[e-horizon]

Hey,

can someone enlighten me about the origin of the brand Luxor? I will get tomorrow (hopefully) a Strat. They were counted to the range of Cimar, but for me they look different. BTW. This Luxor Strat Modell was my first "real" guitar, amazingly the one I will get is from the same bunch a shop from Hamburg sold in the late seventies.

Looks like this one I found via Google in Poland, it has a characteristical gap below the tremolo/pickguard:

Greets
Martin

[UITA]

That's nice, anymore for sale there?

[e-horizon]

I already sent them an E-Mail, no reply yet, there was a statement about a period until somewhere in September, holidays ??? I can't read polish, anyway here is the link:

http://www.sugarhigh.home.pl/HR/pages/start.html

I am so curious about the guitar. Exactly 30 years later I will see again an identical instrument.

[japanstrat]

I don't know anything about Luxor but they seem to have been sold in Germany so maybe a German music shop were importing them from Japan in the 70's/80's.
This sort of thing happened a lot all around the world, the importer/distributer would choose a brand name and import them from Japan and later on from Korea, here in Australia we had Profile and other strange branded Japanese Strats.
Cimar is a brand connected to Hoshino (Ibanez) and I would say Luxor has nothing to do with them.

http://www1.gitarrebass.de/magazine/060 ... _strat.htm

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... n%26sa%3DG


http://www.slip-retlaps.de/popups/P-Mis ... -Strat.htm

http://www.wutzdog-guitars.de/miscjapan.html


http://www.musiker-board.de/vb/e-gitarr ... strat.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... n%26sa%3DG

[Roger]

I don't know anything about Luxor but they seem to have been sold in Germany so maybe a German music shop were importing them from Japan in the 70's/80's.

... isn't that funny ??????? ... you know more about German sellers than all of our "native Germans" - me included ...

Roger

[e-horizon]

but they seem to have been sold in Germany so maybe a German music shop were importing them from Japan in the 70's/80's.

Absolutely, I can track all Luxors I have seen and played to one dealer in Hamburg, called "Musikhaus Zinngrebe". they still exist under a similar name. I intend to ask the new owner which is the daughter of the former owner of the shops about their relation to Luxor. They had a lot of Luxor on display in the 70's. Probably other shops in Germany as well.

Obviously they carried two lines, one budget and one upperclass model. The example from the polish shop is very close to the Ibanez Silver Series/Challenger Strat, IMHO from what I read made by Fujigen http://www.break-even.org/ibzspecial/silver/index.html. The Budget model is the one displayed in the Wutzdog link, it has a (birch?) veneer on top and back and a body which is not alder, ash or basswood (overpriced then). I took fotos from a sunburst yesterday, thinking about a review, but want to wait for an answer from Poland. This budget model is unfortunately hardly playable, but has an "interesting" tone.

Whereas the time I owned the Luxor, a friend get a white Cimar Strat, it looked and felt different than my Luxor, but was as nice and good sounding, just different dimensions, shape, PUs. It was bought nearly the same time from another shop in Hamburg called George Music Shop, he carried a lot of Cimar and no Luxor. I am not certain, that it had no bullet, but it was lighter and had a wider body. It is 30 years ago...

IMHO (no news) Luxor is just a brand name and no factory like Ibanez or Cimar are only brand names, Hoshino ceased production of guitars before Ibanez started. So it was Fujigen (???) for the "luxor ELECTRIC GUITAR" logo and ???? (MIJ lettering on the tremolo block) for the budget model with "luxor" on the label only. I took fotos from a sticker with a model no. and a serial no., may be somebody can identify.

So, my speculation is: Ibanez (Hoshino) decided to bring out a new label with the name Cimar in the same time or shortly after Hoshino had success with custom models under the label Luxor. BTW. the Ibanez Challenger never popped up in catalogues, but on price lists only. It was in the time of the lawsuit (what else was made responsible for anything else, I am really bored to read everywhere "lawsuit" on crap advertisement). The better Luxor strats where made according to the after 1979 (?) discontinued Silver Series/Challenger model, Ibanez started with Cimar guitars a new model line which proceeded to the Blazer etc. Lawsuit??? hohoho

[japanstrat]

The Cimar brand is associated with Hoshino because there are some "Cimar by Ibanez" guitars around.
The Cimars seem to have been a Hoshino low end budget line of guitars.
Sometimes a music shop would import Hoshino/FujiGen designed guitars from factories like FujiGen.
This happened with some English music shops whose own brands look exactly like early Ibanez models but Hoshino had nothing to do with their distribution or their brand name or any selling profit.
It's more likely that Hoshino had nothing to do with Luxor and the Luxor brand name was probably owned by the "Musikhaus Zinngrebe" shop that you write about.
The Luxors could have been made in the FujiGen factory as the early Ibanez's were, but there are also other factories where the Luxors could have been made like Tokai, Matsumoku etc.