Show your LAWSUIT guitars!!!

[Jonesie]

I picked this one up on my Honeymoon back in April. 1984 Yamaha Studio Lord SL450S.

I can totally see why Gibson was worried. This thing is fantastic.

[chordbuster]

Gibson '59 vs Ibanez '59er(neither one is mine).

[Emiel]

i have had quite a few 'lawsuit' guitars over the years. strats, mustangs, and teles and les pauls of all types by the big names such as greco, tokai, teisco, guyatone, yamaki, fernandes, yamaha, as well as the b listers (tomson, westminster, fresher, etc. this greco sg special was especially cool.
(sorry for the strange angles of the pics. )

Do you still have it? How did you find the quality on these guitars?

I'm very happy to own my 1980 Tokai LS-80... a stunner...

[debudavid]

i have had quite a few 'lawsuit' guitars over the years. strats, mustangs, and teles and les pauls of all types by the big names such as greco, tokai, teisco, guyatone, yamaki, fernandes, yamaha, as well as the b listers (tomson, westminster, fresher, etc. this greco sg special was especially cool.
(sorry for the strange angles of the pics. )

Do you still have it? How did you find the quality on these guitars?

I'm very happy to own my 1980 Tokai LS-80... a stunner...

i wish i did. i bought it in 2000 for about US$30 ( ) and sold it a little over a year ago. soon regretted it and still trying to find one like it. it was well made with a set neck, good finish, and great sounding pickups. very accurate in the details. it didn't look out of place next to my old gibson sg standard.
last week i bought a greco les paul jr in a rough state for peanuts but still very playable. my neighbor collects les pauls and has gibsons as well as copies by tokai, burny, bunny, gneco, greco, etc. he swears by them and i have to admit the tokai lps are extremely nice as you already know.

[22danielp]

Got a new Pickguard on my 1981 Greco SG Special

[debudavid]

that sg special is nice!

[mkt3000]

Univox Ripper... not an actual picture of mine, since mine is in pieces at the moment, but this is what she''ll look like once the restoration is complete:



And mine: http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... =9&t=69687" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cmatthes]

This is clearly a thread about "COPY" guitars, not "Lawsuit" guitars.

There are only a very small number of guitars that would even begin to fit the "Lawsuit" category here.

Cool thread, but let's call it what it is...

[preservation]

[chordbuster]

This is clearly a thread about "COPY" guitars, not "Lawsuit" guitars.

There are only a very small number of guitars that would even begin to fit the "Lawsuit" category here.

Cool thread, but let's call it what it is...

This one is

[danelectro]

Here's my Ibanez Goldtop back in 1977

[sumlin]

This is clearly a thread about "COPY" guitars, not "Lawsuit" guitars.

There are only a very small number of guitars that would even begin to fit the "Lawsuit" category here.

Cool thread, but let's call it what it is...

It's just a catch-all term for 70s Japanese copies of big brand guitars, AFAIK the only actual lawsuit was one Fender took out over headstock shape right? In short - who cares? We all know what the shorthand term means...

And with that here's my Antoria SG:

[antisymmetric]

And with that here's my Antoria SG:

Seeing your SG reminds me how much I regret selling mine. I bought it as a do up & sell project and ended up liking it more than I expected. I was given quite good money for it, but.....

[chordbuster]

This is clearly a thread about "COPY" guitars, not "Lawsuit" guitars.

There are only a very small number of guitars that would even begin to fit the "Lawsuit" category here.

Cool thread, but let's call it what it is...

It's just a catch-all term for 70s Japanese copies of big brand guitars, AFAIK the only actual lawsuit was one Fender took out over headstock shape right? In short - who cares? We all know what the shorthand term means...

And with that here's my Antoria SG:

Awesome guitar!

The Lawsuit was actually Gibson vs Ibanez but your right,it was over the headstock shape.They actually had change the shape by the time the suit was filed in federal court but they agreed to destroy the remaining stock of "lawsuit guitars". A friend on another forum told me this:

"I worked in the Ibanez west coast distribution warehouse thru high school (think late 70's) Right at the end of the japanese "replica" era. You would not believe the stuff Hoshino sent us! very nice fenders, gibsons, rickenbackers, voxes... whatever. Most of them said Ibanez or Greco, but it was common to get them with fender or gibson on the headstock. better still I saw strats and tele's that said Gibson and Les Pauls with Fender decals, or pearl inlay... anything was possible! In the beginning we boxed them up and returned them to Japan. The last few months we were required to take any copy down stairs and cut them up on the band saw... One cut thru the neck, one thru the body. I wish I had half of the guitars I sawed in half."

[sumlin]

That's right - got it the wrong way round. Gibson forced the change away from the 'open book' design but they also changed the Fender type headstocks as well. I'm pretty sure no actual lawsuit reached a conclusion though - just that the companies being prosecuted decided to back down. Because 'open book' Les Paul copies (and Fender type guitars) were made by other companies right through the 80s - Fernandes being an example - unless, by that point, those factories were owned by Gibson (for Epiphone) and Fender (for Squier)?