Info on Kasuga brand guitars??
Rick Neidermyer
Kasuga Gakki. It is an acustic guitar and sounds really nice. It is
dated 1972 and has a model number. If anybody has any information on
this guitar please let me know. Thanks.
PS please reply to the personal address and not JUST the news group,
thanks. rmn...@ptd.net
Hojo2X
>I have recently come across a Kasuga brand guitar......
>If anybody has any information on
>this guitar please let me know.
Kasuga is a manufacturer of instruments based in Nagoya, a coastal city about
80 miles down the coast from Tokyo. I've been to Nagoya, climbed up in the
castle, done the usual tourist things in a fairly ordinary Japanese city.
Anyway, I'm not sure if they are still in business, but they were the last time
I was in Japan in the mid-80s. They manufactured midrange acoustic
instruments, including guitars, banjos, and mandolins.
Most of the Kentucky brand mandolins with Made In Japan labels were
manufactured by Kasuga. If you have anything up from a KM-200 up to a KM-750
or so, it's a Kasuga. (These instruments are now being made in Korea.)
Kasuga also made the Trinity College line of flatback mandolin family
instruments for Saga, as well. Only the Kentucky Master Models, from KM-1000s
up, were made at Saga's own factory. Everything else was sub-contracted, and
Kasuga was the main sub-contractor.
All the Kasuga-made instruments I have seen have been solid wood, not
laminates.
I played a few bluegrass clubs and festivals in Japan, and most of the Japanese
musicians seemed to be playing Kasuga guitars, mandolins and banjos. I also
have a friend who has a nice F-4 copy Kasuga mandolin that he bought in Japan.
While most of the Kasuga-made Kentucky mandolins feature pressed arched
solid-wood tops and backs, this Kasuga F-4 my friend owns is hand-carved - you
can tell by the swirling of the grain pattern as the contour of the arches cut
across the grain.
Overall, the Kasugas in the 1980s seemed to occupy much the same market niche
in Japan that Tacoma guitars are occupying in the United States right now: sort
of the intermediate level and upper middle. The Kasuagas I saw and played were
of good quality, if not quite up to the level that we Americans so blithely
expect from our instrument manufacturers.
The Kasuga guitar you have was probably brought back to the States by a GI who
was stationed over there, as, so far as I know, they've never been marketed
under their own brand name over here.
I suspect that it's a good utility instrument, and plays and sounds perfectly
good.
So, did you buy it? If so, how much did you pay? What type of wood does it
have on the back and sides? Since you didn't describe the body shape, I'm
assuming it's a typical Martin dreadnought copy - all the Kasuga guitars that I
saw were.
Wade Hampton Miller
Heinrich Juhn
> The Kasuga guitar you have was probably brought back to the States by a GI who
> was stationed over there, as, so far as I know, they've never been marketed
> under their own brand name over here.
>
> I suspect that it's a good utility instrument, and plays and sounds perfectly
> good.
>
Actually they were marketed in the US under the Kasuga brand briefly
in the early 70s. When I was in college in Champaign, IL there were a
lot of them floating around because the local Martin dealer Rosewood
Guitar Shop sold them. The story they told me is that Martin imported
them for a brief time (like Sigmas) but then dropped them. The one I
had was a dreadnought, solid top and laminated rosewood back and sides.
It was equivalent in quality to a Takamine and looked cool (to the
beginner that I was) because it had a fake abalone script K inlaid in
the pickguard. I run across this model from time to time.
Heinrich Juhn
never be
Hojo2X
>> The Kasuga guitar you have was probably brought back to the States by a GI
Heinrich Juhn wrote:
>Actually they were marketed in the US under the Kasuga brand briefly>in the
early 70s.
That's interesting to know, Heinrich. Thanks. I didn't know that. My only
exposure to the Kasugas was in the 1980s, from my trips over to Japan and
through my dealings with Saga.
By the way, did you ever live in Columbia, Missouri and play music with Cathy
Barton? I knew a guy named Heinrich back then who was one hell of a musician.
Wade Hampton Miller
