This is something of a review of my very first nice strat. I had been playing guitar for only a few months in 1986 and was already looking past my $110 Memphis strat copy at Charvels and Kramers. I was taking guitar lessons at Sightsinger Music here in Orange and every Saturday I would drool over whatever they had on display. The guitar teacher I had at the time steered me into this Strat copy that he explained was part of what they bought from Fender wheen Fender moved out of the Fullerton factory...they blew out all the junk lying around that they really couldn't sell and this was part of a truckload of gear they had bought. I remember a bunch of the Starcaster semi hollow guitars lying around....
This was obviously a "lawsuit" guitar in that every detail of a 1956 strat was slavishly copied. If you check out the headstock even the decal looks like the Fender but the you see things like "Springy Sound" in place of "Stratocaster" and "Oldies but Goldies" in place of "Original Contoured Body" smi
The story I had heard was that they had a trio of these Tokai guitars that had in fact been used as samples in their trademark infringement case in the early 1980's against Tokai. The decals on the back of the headstock (still there to this day) seemed to bear this out:
Here is a little history from Tokai Guitar Registry
There is also a similar bit about their "Les Paul Reborn" model that later became Love Rock. http://www.tokairegistry.com/tokai-info/larrymeiners-tokai-article.html
Since I was a metal kid at the time I had them put a Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge position. Over the years I had it refretted, put a Duncan 57 reissue pickup back in the bridge, had a "neck on" toggle switch installed and then removed and then finally retired the guitar n the mid 1990's. It carried me through High School, College and the early part of my career. It honestly sounded better than any of the guitars Fender was selling in the 108-'s (not too difficult, really) but played like a pig.
I still have it and someday will get it overhauled and start playing it again. It just hasn't been a priority since I own a few nice strats already and the money can be better spent other places.
One thing I am considering is the Eric Johnson thing where you put high frets on a guitar with the rounder fretboard radius and then have the frets leveled to a more playable radius....whenever I pick it up and play it I am amazed at how difficult it is to play....
