Any particular guitar is the best recording acoustics I have heard, with a spruce top, rosewood back, and sides. The excellent craftsmanship can make up for a well-aged instrument bought from the original owner, a luthier himself. The logo reads vertically instead of horizontally on this, but it has a rich and powerful tone.
Here, we are talking about the 1978 Takamine F-450S-A, which is a similar copy of one of Martin’s most prized designs. According to Takamine’s 1976 catalog, the F-450S-A was the finest guitar, featuring genuine Pacific abalone pearl inlaid by hand. Is really Japanese companies made mimic of Martin or is it myth. People know it as Takamine Marting Lawsuit, now let’s know is it real or myth?
This catalog is the experience of a craftsman slowly teaching young apprentices the ‘ Takamine way’ to make guitars. Undoubtedly, the F-450 S is a fine instrument that resembles Martin.
In the catalog, there was a revealing statement, ‘To the eye and the ear, a Takamine matches any guitar on the market today.’ no doubt, Takamine has no match in play, but you will find the sound you want to about a third the price.
Well, if we explain this, the Martin copy is made in Japan and is readily available in the American market for those who can’t afford the real thing. During research, we found that the Unofficial Martin Guitar forum is being used in Western North Carolina.
The same 1976 catalog features the name Taka, which is contorted into the distinctive peaked Guild logo. Takamine made Gall copies, which came into Fanny’s House of Music with the famous Gallagher G intact. That era was called the ‘ lawsuit era,’ the term refers to a 1977 lawsuit filed by Gibson hat suggested that American companies sanguine their Japanese counter arts, but these lawsuits were rare.
The truth is that Takamine is not being sued for its headstocks, while Martin sent a cease-and-desist letter. After that, Ibanez Takamine and some other Japanese companies started to launch their great original designs, and the Takamine Martin lawsuit ended.
According to the Takamine catalog, the back and sides of the F-450S-A are made of Jacaranda. It looks like rosewood, and everything on the guitar is a close copy of a D-41. Jacaranda is a flowering plant with 49 species; rosewood belongs to the Dalbergia genus.
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Many Japanese manufacturers sometimes list fretboard material as Jacaranda, Brazilian rosewood. This is enough to turn my brain to mush. The neck of Takamine is A C-shaped instrument with good volume and depth of tone. Well, the Takamine Marting lawsuit is just a myth. However, the point is that some things motivated them to change their headstock design in the mid-1970s.