That meant that “domestic consumption” included thousands of English speaking GIs from various countries who were a prime target market. You see, there was this little thing called World War II, which Japan lost, followed by the Allied Occupation. But no, they’re mostly in English, even guitars that weren’t made for export.
You might expect that in a country such as Japan the names and logos on domestic would be in Japanese orthography. It’s enough to make your head swim (although it does provide a lot of work for amateur guitar historians).
Plus, through the 1970s Japanese Trading Companies made guitars for domestic consumption using their own brand names (which may or may not have been the name of the shop that made it eg, FujiGen Gakki made Fuji, Greco, and Ibanez guitars, among others) and made guitars for foreign customers either with a different brand name or a name owned by the importer/distributor (which may or may not identify the importing company!). Parts might be made by various suppliers within a network and go to different workshops, so things like pickups are not necessarily exclusive to a given brand (unlike, say, a Gibson PAF). Japanese guitar-makers were always allied with various Trading Companies, who were sort of the business bosses, often intertwined through marriages, etc. To be honest, the subject is awfully complex. I made some preliminary contributions with my writing, and Japanese publications like Bizarre Guitars (you need a copy if you like this subject) and Frank Meyers’ recent work help make identifying Japanese guitars much easier, if not yet infallible. Thankfully these days there’s a lot more information available to anyone interested in finding out the Plain Truth about where their guitar came from thanks to the efforts of a few intrepid historians and (however much you might hate them) Google. Well, the guitar seen here really was made by Teisco, and very early on.
Or, should we say… “guiter”?įor many, many years-can you say “Still today?”-any electric guitar that smelled of being made in Japan (or not obviously American) was labeled as being “made by Teisco.” This was the equivalent of the labelling of any mysterious American guitar-can you say “Still today?”-as being “made by Regal.” I admit this intellectual disingenuousness was one of the strong motivators that propelled me into exploring the nooks and crannies of guitar history way back when. Guest blogger Michael Wright writes about a very rare, early Teisco guitar.