This has happened to more than a few businesses over time. The financial crisis hit, sales dropped enough to fold the company and the Spanish warehouse opened up fully and took the market. The Chinese setup a satellite business in Spain and filled a warehouse with stock under a different brand name.

Waiting until you had enough to fill a container to return took time and money and also curbed sales. First few consignments met all expectations, then the crap started creeping in and increasingly, as each shipment came into the UK. I inspected the factory and methods, also setting out QC limits etc. Some guitar shops are no longer selling Tokais due to price rises of late and even claiming that they cannot justify the selling price anymore when compared to other makes available.įurther to the company I worked for using a Chinese factory to make their stuff. Prices have rocketed to where a current model 50 is around £5<600 and an early 80's MIJ Tokai in good condition struggles to sell on Ebay etc for that money. I've seen direct from China non catalogue Tokais in the UK since the new distributor took over and thy seem reluctant to indicate origin.ĮMD Music are the UK Distributor but you can only look at the website after you have been accepted as a dealer and given login rights. The other thing to remember when shipping stuff from China, is that full payment up front is the normal and demanded by Central government, this prevents cash voids for them but just try and get refunds on defective goods! You have to ship it back at your costs and await judgement. One set of ser#'s sent to Tokai Gakki for license payments and another hidden list of backdoor jobbies with or without ser #'s. Whether Tokai have any written agreements on QC or anything is else is anyone's guess but the Chineses are more than capable of making good stuff as much as out the backdoor stuff. I've seen some models in the Tokai Gakki catalogues of late and there have been pictures of them in the Hammamatsu factory.

Tokai guitar serial numbers