Takamine F 385 Serial Number
I just recently bought a real nice Takamine guitar that is a total knock off of a Martin D-18. It sounds great. The headstock is just like a Martin and Takamine is spelled in the same gold lettering. From 10 feet away, it looks like a Martin; no joke.
The action is low, it stays in tune even after long playing, the fit and finish is better than most new Takamine that you'd see at Guitar Center.Does anyone know about these? Are the back or sides solid wood? It has a truss rod and a serial number on the neck block. How can I tell how old it is? Takamine doesn't deal with these guitars on their current website.
Ebay always has a few of these Martin copies listed, but the hardware, bridges and fit and finish always seems to vary greatly, as though they were made over a long period of time, but I was told they were only made for a short while.woodyboyd 06:56 PM. I got mine during college in the early '80s. It hangs on the wall at my office and has played both in church and at open mics. I bought it because it had a pick up. The only other option at the time with a pick up was an Ovation.Mine is a dark brown Martin copy.
I saw a performer playing its authentic 'sister' recently and could not tell them apart.I love the sound and playability of that guitar. This was the guitar that I would play about once a year for about 20 years when I was not playing. Believe it or not, that guitar would not require much tuning between playing.A friend called these guitars 'SuMe' models.Folkstrum 09:12 PM. A friend of mine had a 12-string Tak, with the 'Martin copy' headstock. It was nice enough to play, but sounded rather jangly or 'thin'. I guess the Martin people (as I heard the story) made noises about a lawsuit, but never went through with it.
Takamine was not about to risk going up against CF and Nazareth, and changed the headstock on their own.From 10 feet away, you couldn't tell it wasn't a Martin 12-except maybe for the sound-maybe not even then. They seem to be prized guitars, and fetch higher prices on Ebay because of the Martin look.Fstpicker 10:01 PM.
The first time I played one of the lawsuit Taks was in 1975. I had a Yamaha FG200 (my first guitar) that I had been playing for 2 years. A friend of mine wanted me to help him learn guitar and he had one of these Taks. After playing it for a while I realized that it played and sounded much better than my Yamaha, which gave me GAS. I opted for a real Martin in 1977 instead of the knock-off Tak.I saw a knock-off Tak recently in a store. It was laminated Brazilian Rosewood with a solid spruce top and looked like a Martin from a few feet away.
It reminded me of my friend's and that first realization (awakening) that my first guitar was not as good as I had believed. (My ears were changing, like most of our ears do.)jayhawk 10:48 PM. The story is heard about the origin of the Martin copies is interesting:Martin actually was working with Takamine to build these copies. They were going to be the Martin's Sigma line of guitars. Apparently, Martin even provided tooling for the guitars. Takamine was ready to produce these guitars for Martin when Kaman purchased Takamine. Martin decided they were not going to support Kaman by buying guitars from them so they canceled the contract and took Sigma to a different manufacturer.
Takamine was ready to produce the guitars and simply changed the name on the headstock.I can't say it is absolutely true, but I heard it from a very reliable friend.Jacksoundnpix 02:47 AM. My uncle has one of the lawsuit Takamine's with the Gibson style headstocks. It's one of the best sounding guitars I've ever played. To me, it's sounds almost as good as his 60's era Martin D-18.He, for some odd reason, would string it with medium guage electric guitar strings. It sounded good then. I borrowed it for a gig and restrung it for him using Martin SPs (medium guage) and he nearly pooped himself when he got it back. He called me back telling me that he has to know what I did to make it sound even better.
Takamine F 360s Serial Numbers
Guess he thought since it was an acoustic electric that he had to put electric strings on it. My family just plays the guitars, I'm the only one with any real 'knowledge' to tell the differenceKevin A 01:13 AM.