|
|
#16
12-29-2008, 09:39 PM
|
|||
|
|||
is that a type of sushi?
__________________
Acoustics 2005 Taylor 814ce 2008 Taylor 110 Castillo 3/4th Size Nylon Epiphone DR-212 Twelve String Guitar 
|
|
#17
07-08-2010, 10:45 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Kasuga Classical
Hi Kasuga Lovers,
I'm a sad unfortunate who lost his Ovation Glen Campbell Classical to the Hock Shop devils, and have been left broke and without a guitar. I bought that guitar when I was in High School, back in 1977. I used to play with INXS before they were that, before they were the Farris Bros, before Guinness and Fish. Some INXS historians probably wouldn't remember the names of bands I can spout in laughter thinking back of how much fun we had and how bad we were back in High School........ANYWAY, enter a girl I meet in hospital who says I can have her guitar which she hasn't used in 15 years. She says it's a Yamaha classical. Open the near mint case covered in dust and spider webs and it's a Kasuga. Bit of oil, bit of rubbing, bit of removing sticky tape where someone had tacked a song list to the body, new set of strings. It's bloody great. Sounds better than my GC Ovation ever did! Or have my ears changed because of my current financial state? Anyway, I'm playing a guitar again, it sounds great, thankyou Mr and Mrs Kasugasan.
|
|
#18
07-09-2010, 03:23 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
talk about your Lazerus thread. Here in Japan Kasugas are not at all rare...just watch Yahoo Japan to see... they show up on line at auction sites all the time. From what I can tell...the top of the lines are the ones that have THE Kasuga on the headstock in abalone, there are plenty of models with a decal logo but frankly they don`t tempt me at all...but I have been buying old MIJ nylon strings for some years over here and have found some genuine beauties...evidently they exported a lot of cheap stuff but after I got here I came to realize they were certainly capable of building top notch guitars and did...do not judge all MIJs by what you see overseas, and there were many fabulous smaller builders putting out great guitars, I own some. Plus...Suzuki was involved in making very good guitars...I have a 1948 nylon string that is still going strong and will out last me for sure, and I have a 1950 Kiso Suzuki too that is one of my best. So yeah, reading page one of this thread, there were those factories that were mentioned by one poster but in my experience there were many others too. I wasn`t around this site when the thread started but from my collection alone I can assure you, the Japanese have been building great guitars since at least the `40s...possibly earlier, and they haven`t forgotten how to build em either, we are spoiled for choices of fantastic MIJ guitars these days.
|
|
#19
07-09-2010, 03:25 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
#20
12-15-2010, 04:08 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Kasuga guitar
Interesting comments on the Kasuga guitar. I have a model W 20 12 string made in 1969 and I bought it from a fellow soldier in Vietnam in 1970. It traveled with me twice back and forth to Vietnam, and up and down the east coast. I was truly blessed to be able to perform at my sisters wedding to play and sing the wedding song. This guitar has just given me so much pleasure with a deep rich full sound. Getting ready to put on a new set of strings so I can play and enjoy Christmas Carols. I would not trade this guitar for any thing and if I could put my hands on another one (6 string) I would. Very well made, and a long lasting beautiful finish. Play on my friends. Since 1950 G
|
|
#22
12-16-2010, 03:37 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I have a circa '71-'72 Kasuga OM style. While it was a pretty decent guitar for learning, at the time, it certainly isn't anywhere near Martin quality.
__________________
HD-28 D-18GE SCGC 1929 00 Eastman E20P
|
|
#23
12-16-2010, 05:10 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
I had no idea what I had until I went to sell it online and was inundated with 79 email responses in one day and ended up selling it for 5 times more than I paid for it. It is a very highly prized insutrment in the mandolin world. So, yes, the Japanese certainly knew how to build when they wanted to. Steve
__________________
Still crazy after all these years. Last edited by El Conquistador; 12-16-2010 at 05:35 PM.
|
|
#24
12-16-2010, 09:13 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
http://www.vintagemandolin.com/kentu...iclepage1.html For what it's worth, the facility that built the top end Kentucky mandolins of that era was run by a father and son named Tahara. Sumi was one of their employees: he had graduated from a local crafts school where he'd majored in a traditional regional woodcarving style - I've got a beautiful wood carving here that he sent my wife and me as a wedding present when we got married about six months after our visit to Nagano. Anyway, the idea that Sumi handbuilt all of the KM-Dawg mandolins by himself is nonsense, I'm afraid. I saw several of that model in production, and as it states on the first page of the Frets article, any of the four luthiers in the shop would complete any of the stages of construction, with the exception of the lacquering, which was the job of the younger Tahara. Looking back over the article just now, I noticed for the first time that the middle picture on the first page got mislabeled - those are KM-Dawg mandolins, not mandocellos. On the last page there's a picture showing the Monteleone series mandocello, mandola and mandolin together, and you can see that the finished mandolin is next to the same unfinished mandolins as in the first picture. Getting back to Sumi, he was a very nice guy, and is obviously very skilled. What's more, he's continued to make mandolins and built himself an admirable (and deserved) reputation as a handbuilder of world class mandolins. But the story that you've related about the original high end Kentucky mandolins has obviously grown a great deal in the telling. Short version: they were and are very nice mandolins. I have a rare bird "Sumi-era" Kentucky oval hole A model mandolin that I love and will never sell. But Sumi never built any of those Kentucky Master Model mandolins entirely by himself. It was the Taharas, father and son, who ran the plant and who taught Sumi what they knew. If anyone built one-off prototypes entirely by themselves during that era, it would have been the Taharas, not Sumi. At that point, Sumi might have been the star pupil, but Tahara-sama the senior was the sensei. If you have any familiarity with Japanese culture at all, you have a sense of how hierarchical the Japanese are. They even use completely different word forms to indicate the precise status of everyone and everything within that hierarchy. Sumi has gone on to completely outshine the Taharas in terms of global recognition, no question about it. But at the time he was an employee of Saga Japan, Sumi-san would have been #3 in a hierarchical group of 4. Anyway, I hope this clears up the misinformation that you were given about these great mandolins. One more thing - the Taharas and Sumi never had any connection with the Kasuga line of instruments, other than the fact that Kasuga made mandolins with "Kentucky" on the peghead and so did they. But the operations were completely separate, and I doubt they ever even met each other. The Maruko plant in Nagano Prefecture was owned in its entirety by Saga, and the luthiers who worked there were Saga Japan employees. Whereas the Kasuga company acted as a subcontractor making the midrange mandolins in the Kentucky product line. At the same time that Kasuga was making the midrange Kentucky mandolins, they were also making mandolins for other companies and still others under their own brand name. Hope this helps to straighten out some of the admittedly complicated business arrangements during this era of Japanese musical instrument production. Wade Hampton Miller
|
|
#25
12-17-2010, 02:49 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Nagano seems to have been a hot bed for high level luthiers at one time...I have some Sadao Yairi nylon string guitars as well as other lesser known makers, one of which I took a chance on when I saw Hand made Made in Nagano on the label in English...the rest is Japanese and even the natives that I`ve shown the guitar to have not been able to read the entire name on it but long story short...I bid 21 yen on it on line and won...turned out to be all solid wood and has become one of my favorites so they were certainly building great guitars it just seems they exported a lot of the crap they made, I mean as a kid in the 5 and dime stores all we saw was stuff that looked like it was gonna break before we got it to the car however since arriving in Japan I have come to realize, thats not all they made.
|
|
#26
12-17-2010, 07:21 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I looked at mine again. (it's been leaning against a wall for 30+ years.) It's a model F220. It came with a steel adjustable bridge, which has long since gone missing....which is why it has been leaning against a wall so long.
__________________
HD-28 D-18GE SCGC 1929 00 Eastman E20P
|
|
#27
12-17-2010, 10:47 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Forgive me if I have served only to promulagte a myth, but, in my defense, you can see by these links, if it is a myth, it is a pretty well established myth. http://www.desertrosebanjo.com/sumi.htm http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...-Mandolin-info http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...-Mandolin-info http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ntucky-KM-Dawg http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...00-and-KM-Dawg About 3/4 of the page down: http://doctorgary.net/bluegrass.html and on and on. One thing I can say with surety, the DAWG is considered a very hot property in the current mandolin world as evidenced by the feeding frenzy I unwittingly unleashed when I listed my DAWG for sale on the Mandolin Cafe classified page. Steve
__________________
Still crazy after all these years. Last edited by El Conquistador; 12-17-2010 at 11:51 AM.
|
|
#28
12-21-2010, 01:49 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Just because a myth gets repeated over and over again doesn't make it true, as the so-called "Lawsuit Takamine" and "the big fire that burned up all the good woods at Martin" myths illustrate. I was there, and can prove that I saw the mandolins being made, which I'm willing to bet that none of these other fervent believers in the "Sumi made them all by himself" myth can prove. If you need further illumination on the point, you can call Saga Musical Instruments at 1-800-288-7242 and ask for Richard Keldsen, owner and sole proprietor of Saga. As the owner of the facility and employer of the Taharas and Sumi-san, he was also there, and can tell you about how the instruments were made. Of course, it's much more enjoyable to believe the story that has been inflated by time and by Sumi's subsequent success as a handbuilder. But it's inaccurate. You benefited financially from the subsequent inflation of the those mandolins' reputation, so I can see why you want to believe it, too. But it's not true. It's that simple. It's a myth. Wade Hampton Miller
|
|
#29
05-17-2012, 05:01 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
A late addition ...
I still have a Kasuga 250 which I bought second hand late 70s for $50. I bought it off a friend who "upgraded" to one of the Kasuga hand built models. In his opinion the 250 was a better sounding instrument. It's got a great low action which only buzzes if the string gauge is too light.
The only issues I have with it are the tuners a low quality and could do with replacing and the harmonics aren't quite right meaning that I need to "middle-tune" it. Bit of a challenge at times. I've added a Fishman pickup a few years ago and have an external EQ. I've played this instrument live in concerts (up to 10,000 people) with no complaints :-) That aside ... it's a great sounding instrument that is nice and crisp through the range although a little thin at the tops & bottoms. It's given me many hours of enjoyment over the last 30 years! Where else can you get that for $50!!!?
|
