And Phillips thanks so much for your posts one question is If I were to pay say $900 for a Tokai or the same for an Edwards which would you think be the better buy?? Like which is higher end as far as construction goes.
As long as it's a Japanese Tokai, I don't think there's a great deal of difference, they're both excellent. Based on the ones I've owned, I'd say Tokai capture
slightly more of a vintage vibe. Edwards are still built like vintage guitars but they feel very "clean" and "new" somehow. But I'm talking about tiny differences in feel really, the construction's equally good.
Apart from construction quality, in some ways I'd say Edwards are better value - depending on what price you manage to find them for, of course. Only because they come with genuine Seymour Duncan USA pickups and excellent Gotoh hardware (even Sperzels and TonePros on some models). Tokais have Gotoh hardware too, on the more expensive models, but they use own-brand pickups.
Be careful though, as Dave said, there are lots of different models at different price points. Generally with Japanese guitars the model number gives an indication of the price - e.g. an Edwards E-LP-85 has a list price of approximately 85,000 Yen, an E-LP-100 is approximately 100,000 Yen. Tokai do something similar - I had an SG-75 and an SG-155 which was much more expensive. The higher the number, the "better" the guitar.
When Tokai export to the UK or US they seem to use different model names/numbers, and I'm not sure how those work, but I think the "numbers" rule still applies.
