Anyone familiar with the Sadao Yairi Samicks ?
 

Was browsing Ebay and ran across this......... It says it is a S. Yairi Samick SK-7. It piqued my interest.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samick-SK-7-...item2c6bf42e48

The back looks like it could be Brazillian. Anyone here familiar with this guitar ?

Bryant

... New detente' on the Pac Rim.

That's a bit like me saying I wouldn't work with a German because I'm British.

Try Googling "Samick Yairi"...

I played one a couple of years ago when it came up for sale locally. Workmanship was nice but I was not overly impressed with the tone. I could not find much info on these at the time and really never knew the back wood for sure.
The seller was asking $500 and to me it was worth $300 or so.

I started a thread at the time http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=188660

I googled it before I made the post. Not much info out there on it. It was curiosity more than anything. I wouldn't blind buy one for that amount of money, anyway.

Bryant

Judging from the date, it is one made when one Sada the elder had died and the company is now run by one of his sons.. I own some of the elder`s nylon string guitars and they are superb...seen the recent out sourced models locally, have not tempted to buy one.

I have a Samick SK-7 S Yairi , can’t find out much about it, great guitar, love to know what “SK” stands for????

The SK-7 was one of Samick’s Pro Series (aka Handcrafted
Series). The SK-7 was formerly the Versailles model, and was discontinued in 1994. Last MSRP was $700.

Solid cedar top, rosewood b/s, bound rosewood fingerboard with pearl dot inlay, ebony bridge, nato neck, wood bound body, wooden rosette, pearl logo, tortoise shell pickguard, brown white dot bridge pins.

Other in the Pro series were S-7 and SK-5 (Marseilles -spruce/mahogany).

All above info courtesy of 5th edition Blue Book of Acoustic guitars.

No mention is made of S.Yairi.

However, under the Samick entry in Acoustic Guitars: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (Balafon) it says that, although Samick had been making acoustic guitars under other brands since the 1970’s, in 1991 they introduced the first Samick branded guitars and “Also sold at that time was a line of solid-top ‘handcrafted’ guitars made by Hiroshi Yairi. By 1992 the Yairi name had departed, but handcrafted guitars continued.”

So it would appear the Yairi Samick was only in production for less than two years.

Hope that is of interest even if it doesn’t directly answer your question.

Regards,
Clive.

Did you buy the SK-7 ? I picked one up a couple of weeks ago , it's a SK-7 Samick S Yairi , made in 1998 , I love it , it appears to be a quality guitar , the tone is amazing , you can check it out on YouTube , should be easy enough to find , this one is a keeper