1979 Tokai Springy Sound - Alexander Pribora Pickups Traditional set

1979 Tokai Springy Sound ST-80 Stratocaster Alexander Pribora pickups - Traditional set Fender Bassman amp During the mid-1970s, Tokai helped satisfy demand in guitar market for look-alike old Les Paul and Stratocaster guitars. Tokai’s Strat-clones were available in Japan beginning in 1976 and were intended to be high-end guitars, not low-cost copies. These early attempts by Tokai to meet the markets demand for replica Stratocasters pre-date Fender’s own reissue models by several years. Tokai’s goal was to make an old-style Strat-style guitar available to local (Japanese) buyers at an affordable price point. Also, Tokai built these cool reproductions as a tribute to the one of the most sought after vintage guitars and certainly the most copied body style in the history of solid-body electric guitars. Tokai initially introduced both a 1954 (maple-neck) and a 1959 (slab-board) style Strat copy. Tokai designed these guitars to be similar versions and not exact, carbon copies of the originals. With most Tokai 1954 Stratocaster-replica guitars, you notice a highly figured, light ash body finished in a 50s style black color with a deep rear-body contour. The hard rock maple V-shaped neck has a button string-retainer and single-line, Kluson-like tuners. A single-ply, eight-screw pickguard holds the staggered-pole single-coil pickups. Tokai made two obvious changes to this guitar when compared to a true vintage 1954 model and were made to accommodate function over form. First, these instruments were equipped with a five-way pickup selector switch and second, the adjustment end of the truss rod is not a screw type, but a metric Allen wrench socket. These guitars came with a 1950s Fender-style tweed case. A most interesting feature of these guitars is their headstock logo decal. Looking from several feet away, the decal appears as though it is an old Fender ’spaghetti’ logo. Upon closer inspection, ’Tokai’ script is placed where the word ’Fender’ would be located on a Stratocaster headstock. Tokai replaced the backward F with a T (without a line through the letter). The words ’S P R I N G Y S O U N D’ were used in place of ’S T R A T O C A S T E R’ in block letters. An original Stratocaster decal reads ’WITH SYNCHRONIZED TREMOLO’, the Tokai has ’THIS IS THE EXACT REPLICA OF THE GOOD OLD STRAT.’. Finally, at the knob end of the headstock the decal says, ’Oldies BUT Goldies’ which substitutes for ’ORIGINAL Contour Body’. Maybe the guitar wasn’t an exact replica, but it has a cool vibe.