Establishing a date of manufacture for this Tokai Goldstar.

[FenderBNDR]

Hey Tokai experts

Could someone help me establish a date of manufacture for this Goldstar?

Seamus

 

[FenderBNDR]

Another pic.

 

[felis]

Hey Tokai experts

Could someone help me establish a date of manufacture for this Goldstar?

What type of pickups are in there?

So far and from what I (not your 'expert' ) have seen, read and heard (and when the 'rolled brass plate' is original to the guitar?) manufacture date could be placed somewhere around '84/'85/'86?

 

[stratman323]

What type of pickups are in there?

So far and from what I (not your 'expert' ) have seen, read and heard (and when the 'rolled brass plate' is original to the guitar?) manufacture date could be placed somewhere around '84/'85/'86?

I agree - pickups are the most likely thing to give us a clue about date. Goldstars are hard to date as the serial number doesn't help. I have a vague idea that the excellent little brass plate under the controls (one of the few improvements to the Strat since 1954) was only on the early Goldstars, so I might be prepared to stick my neck out & say 1984/5 as I think I once heard that this feature had gone by 1986. But it's very hard to say.

Back in the 1980s, the good folk at Tokai didn't have the faintest idea that people like us would care in the slightest about exactly when their guitar was made 30 years later!

 

[felis]

I agree - pickups are the most likely thing to give us a clue about date. Goldstars are hard to date as the serial number doesn't help. I have a vague idea that the excellent little brass plate under the controls (one of the few improvements to the Strat since 1954) was only on the early Goldstars, so I might be prepared to stick my neck out & say 1984/5 as I think I once heard that this feature had gone by 1986. But it's very hard to say.

Back in the 1980s, the good folk at Tokai didn't have the faintest idea that people like us would care in the slightest about exactly when their guitar was made 30 years later!

Well said.

And thus making it more interesting for us.

 

[7alkai]

Old post, but doesn't look like it was resolved?

Brass ground plate phased out by 1987.

5 digit serial number on a maple board suggests they were still using the Fender style numbering system.

It is really hard to see the code stamped in the control cavity but I think I see and = sign which was phased out by 1985 apparently.

So it is likely a 1984 or 1985 Goldstar in my opinion.

Pickups would help tell what model it is.

 

[7alkai]

1984/85 catalog with TSTs with the Fender headstock.

 

[stratman323]

Old post, but doesn't look like it was resolved?

Brass ground plate phased out by 1987.

5 digit serial number on a maple board suggests they were still using the Fender style numbering system.

It is really hard to see the code stamped in the control cavity but I think I see and = sign which was phased out by 1985 apparently.

So it is likely a 1984 or 1985 Goldstar in my opinion.

Pickups would help tell what model it is.

View attachment 618083

I'm interested to know where you got the 1987 date from. It sounds about right but I've never been able to pin it down.

 

[7alkai]

By logging lots of guitars, and using pot dates in relation to these odd six digit serial numbers starting with 2xxxxx that we see in 1986 and 1987.

This one, SN 209815 is the last one I have found with a brass ground plate, but unfortunately someone switched out the pots years later to CTS.

And don't go by what the seller has dated it as.... They were probably using the Registry.

https://reverb.com/uk/item/36093731...-1984-cream-white-fender-stratocaster-reissue



Based on what I have seen this guitar was likely made in the fall of 1986.

Still collecting info on these and trying to document every one I come across.

It is absolutely gone by Feb 1987 based on other examples.

No one else that I know of has done this so I am piecing this together as I go, but that is what the pot dates are telling me.

And thank God they were using pots we can date in this period!

 

[stratman323]

I can't read pots...

OK, glad you managed to pin it down. Glad also that we were about right with assuming 1986/7. That helps to confirm what I thought - that this one is later, maybe 86 or 87. Metallic Pink - do you recall seeing that colour in any catalogues?

I let a mate have the Gold Metallic one for what I paid for it. I wish I hadn't done that.

 

[7alkai]

Add 1983 to the possibilities.

I just discovered that the Tokai catalog that has the first script logo Goldstars was printed in March 1983.



So the catalog and the script logo Goldstars came out mid year in 1983.

I believe the first ones in 1983 had E and U pickups.

Before the year’s end the 1984 models would have hit the market which it looks like sported the VII pickups (Vintage MKII) in TST50 guitars, V (Vintage) in TST60 guitars, and DiMarzio VS-1 in TST80 guitars.

Fender style serial numbers phased out in the spring of 1986.

Hope that’s helpful.

 

[stratman323]

I guess that makes sense, it ties in with my Dec 1983 bought script decal Goldstar. I always assumed that mine must have been one of the first in the UK, looks like you've just confirmed it.

Cool.

Similar story to my 1980 Silver Star SS-60. The well known Tokai expert told me that these guitars were only available in 1981 because they only appeared in the 1981 catalogue. But mine was sitting there in front of me proudly wearing it's 1980 serial number.