1978 Kiso Suzuki Guild D55 copy

Epsilon

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Recently picked this up for a decent price. Needed some work doing but plays pretty well now. Obviously not on the same level as a real USA Guild D55 but an interesting piece nonetheless. Appears to be a 1978 copy by Kiso Suzuki in Japan. Relatively convincing from a distance with some departures from the original design (for example a three piece rosewood back, adjustable saddle). Anyone come across one of these before?










 
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SFIV1967

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That looks actually very nice!
Kiso Suzuki made a few more copies of Martin, Gibson and Guild. (as did Takamine, Ibanez,...)
Like that Martin D-35 copy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw2xqRNOVhQ
They also made Martin D-45 copies.
That CF Suzuki & Co. is actually their CF Martin & Co. logo copy ! They sometimes added "EST 1951" to look like the Martin logo, well here on a Gibson copy:

j300_headstock2.jpg


The Gibson copies were called "Tomson":

tomson_gw380_label2.jpg


Ralf
 

txbumper57

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I have seen that model before. I own a few of the Takamine "Lawsuit" Guitars from the 70's. One is a F375S which is a mix of a copy of a Martin D35 with it's 3 piece back and a D28 with the Herringbone binding and diamond Volute, The other is a F362S which is a copy of a Gallagher Doc Watson Model in Rosewood. They are both Great guitars with solid tops and Laminated back and sides. No where near on the level with a Newer D55 but they will hold their own against a similar 70's era Martin for a lot less money! That Suzuki is a beautiful guitar!

TX
 

David R.C.

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Here is another probably more well-known copy made by a Japanese guitar maker Nashville (the owner of Nashville Tahara who incidentally did work for Guild over some years). I have owned it from new for over 40+ years. My Luthier with a great deal of experience has worked on it a couple of times over that period and has also worked on many Guild's said to me, the quality in some areas equals or possibly betters Guild the playability is very good and the tone is still bright and almost as good as far I can remember
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when I had the F50R and the F512.
 

fronobulax

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Here is another probably more well-known copy made by a Japanese guitar maker Nashville (the owner of Nashville Tahara who incidentally did work for Guild over some years).

<veer> Do you know who worked for Guild and when? I can find references to Ryohei Tahara as a principal at Tahara guitars along with many favorable comments about his work but a direct connection between anyone at Tahara and Guild is not (yet) documented on the internet.
 

chazmo

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Pretty guitar, R. C. I'd certainly seen the OP's Suzuki copies before, but never a "Nashville."

And, does this have a truss rod? Is it adjustable from within the body? I don't see a TRC.

Any chance of a better picture of the label?
 

David R.C.

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Ryohei Tahara That's the guy he apparently carried out contract work for Guild way back.
Truss rod adjustment inside the soundbox.
That's the best label photo I can get sorry.
 

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Those are great! I still have a handful of vintage lawsuit acoustics, with an adjustable bridge as well. Interesting story. I still have the first I bought back in the eighties. Early 70’s Washburn W250 D28 copy. Best sounding of them by far. So I cut cut my teeth on guitar work by servicing guitars for the guys in my bands back in the 70’s, I had never seen an adjustable bridge befor. So I got the Washburn. I took the adjustable bridge out to investigate how it works. When I saw how the steel piece had a radius bend at the bottom, I thought it was broken, defective, or someone bent it. Certainly if its not flat to make contact with the wood, why that’s no good. So I spent hours working with it to try and straighten it, to no avail. That steel was hard. So I just put it back in and played it till I found out later on, that’s how the were made, to rock from side to side, ha! I never told anyone that story for many years, how embarrassing. I’ve made thin saddles for mine out of dry light weight bone stock, with radiusing the bottom to touch the radiused steel slot from side to side. Years ago I took one out and made a fat saddle to replace the whole adjustable piece. Sounded awful so I learned to just leave them alone. Enjoy the D55..ish!!
 

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Thank you guys for the comments. Here is a question for you knowledgeable Guild fans. If you ordered a new D55N now do you know where it would be made and, what quality would you expect compared to earlier made D55N's?
 

SFIV1967

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Thank you guys for the comments. Here is a question for you knowledgeable Guild fans. If you ordered a new D55N now do you know where it would be made and, what quality would you expect compared to earlier made D55N's?
There is no such thing as a D55N. The Guild D-55 is made in Oxnard, California and you can see all specs here:


The D-55 is currently only available as "E" version, means with "electronics". Either with Natural Top or in Antique Burst.
However it's hard finding one currently, demand is higher than supply.

Ralf
 

David R.C.

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Well, thanks for that Ralph. Any comments re. comparatable quality sound etc.?
 

SFIV1967

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I'd certainly seen the OP's Suzuki copies before, but never a "Nashville."
The Nashville models were discussed a few times in the past here. As far as I had found out, Nashville wasn't a guitar maker in Japan, but Nashville Musical Instrument Co. was either a Nashville music store that sold their own branded acoustic guitars, all made in Japan, during the 1970s or maybe they were strictly a wholesaler to other music stores in the South-Eastern US. They were located on Lower Broadway in Nashville one block down from Gruhns Guitar at that time and used P.O. Box 242. The owner's name was Richard Cromwell. Most all of the guitars were copies of Martin guitars. NMI closed their doors in 1980.


Ralf
 

David R.C.

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Checked mine out through tons of emails and talking to people in the know in Japan it was definitely made in Japan by Tahara.
 

bobouz

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I own a few of the Takamine "Lawsuit" Guitars from the 70's. One is a F375S which is a mix of a copy of a Martin D35 with it's 3 piece back and a D28 with the Herringbone binding and diamond Volute, The other is a F362S which is a copy of a Gallagher Doc Watson Model in Rosewood. They are both Great guitars with solid tops and Laminated back and sides.

Fun to see this in Tx’s old post, as the F-362s Gallagher Doc Watson clone is the instrument I just recently mentioned in another thread. I had test driven a new one in the ‘70s, was quite impressed & came within a whisker of buying it.

There was a ton of overlap in the various Japanese offerings at the time, because seemingly anyone could set themselves up as a distributor, contract with a company in Japan, & put either their own name of choice on the headstock or retain a Japanese distributors name, such as Aria or Ibanez. In particular, some of the mandolin & banjo offerings represented a tremendous value in the marketplace. This is a solid carved-top 1979 Ibanez 513, which was based on Jethro Burns’ Gibson:

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SFIV1967

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Checked mine out through tons of emails and talking to people in the know in Japan it was definitely made in Japan by Tahara.
Oh yes, I think there is no question about that Nashville branded guitars were made at Tahara.
According to what I read in the early 1970s the man with the name Tahara had a factory in Matsumoto that produced acoustic guitars, but they also made some mandolins. They also used the Maya and El Maya brandnames. Tahara's factory in Matsumoto went into bankruptcy in the mid to later 1970s. He moved the factory to Tateshina outside of Maruko-machi in Nagano Prefecture and only continued making Mandolines there. Around 1979 Saga Musical Instruments took over the remaining operation from him.

Ralf
 

Westerly Wood

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actually, I would not be surprised if this sounded every bit as good as a D55. Japan was nailing acoustic guitars in the 60s and 70s. Same on the electric side, with their MIJ Fender strats. I remember hearing in early 80s how many preferred the Japanese strats to the US made, and it kicked Fender US in butt to get their quality control in gear.

anyway, this looks like a great dread.
 

David R.C.

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Thank you guys I was beginning to think I had dreamt all my research way back in the 1970s. A further piece of info I was told at that time by someone who worked with Tahara was that, he used to in the early days, do the complete copy of the Guild logo in the headstock and Guild instructed him to stop and that ended any relationship he had with them past or present at that time.
 

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David R.C.

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But, you expert Guild acoustic players/fans still have not given me any suggestions as to what the sound and playability of the present Oxnard-made D55 will be compared with earlier D55s built elsewhere. Can someone take the plunge and tell me the worse, please? Because maybe I should look for a different preowned D55 if the quality is not what I have had in the past.
 

fronobulax

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But, you expert Guild acoustic players/fans still have not given me any suggestions as to what the sound and playability of the present Oxnard-made D55 will be compared with earlier D55s built elsewhere. Can someone take the plunge and tell me the worse, please? Because maybe I should look for a different preowned D55 if the quality is not what I have had in the past.

I don't think you are going to get the answer you want.

I don't think there are very many people who have experience with an Oxnard D55, let alone with both an Oxnard D55 and a previous factory's iteration of the D55. Some of that can be attributed to supply chain and COVID related issues. The instruments seem to be on back order. That said, about half the time I post something like that, someone else will take great glee in posting something that shows I am wrong.

Sound and playability are very subjective judgements. There are many threads about how to describe sound in words and how to quantify attributes of sound. We haven't figured that out yet and the best that will happen is that someone uses words in a comparison and you think they know what they meant. Playability is also subjective. People who prefer a 1 11/16" nut will routinely say any instrument with a 1 3/4" nut is unplayable.

If behind all this is "what to buy" then you can certainly start a thread and ask the question. The worst that will happen is that you will get questions you should ask yourself. For the most part, unless there is a specific specification that changed from factory to factory or across decades, and that matters to you, the advice will be to play first, if you can, decide whether you are comfortable buying used and then let your budget guide you.
 
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