Frank
Introduction: Frank in Bremen emailed me a few days ago (early August 2009) looking for information on his Kawai guitar. A couple of emails and photos later, and we've discovered a new variant on the KS-11 range!
The guitar: A natural finish Kawai KS-11-XL (actually, my favourite version).
The story: Frank found his Kawai on eBay in 2004/5. It was a complete gamble by him as the description stated only ... "Electric guitar for sale. Good, but magnets defective. Thank you" ... and there were no photos on the listing either. Frank contacted the seller and received 2 very blurred photos, and no more information. But he decided to risk 125 Euros and buy it. When the guitar arrived, Frank showed it to his good friend Oliver - a "dedicated and experienced collector of vintage Jap gear" (those are Frank's words). Oliver liked the Kawai so much, that he decided to hunt one out for himself and managed to find one himself a few months later to add to his own collection of vintage Ibanez and Tokai guitars.
Frank's guitar is currently having some tender care from a luthier to fix a slightly warped neck, so he will send some more photos when the guitar returns. Until then, here are a couple of photos.
I'm also hoping to receive some photos from Oliver sometime soon ...
The photos:
This first photo shows Frank's Kawai alongside an Ibanez Artist of the same era, to illustrate the similarities ...
This second photo is the interesting one ... look at the headstock! This headstock design was used on Kawai's later range of guitars, but I've never seen a KS-11 with anything other than an open headstock design. So, perhaps Kawai decided to modify the design in their quest for popularity, or perhaps this guitar was built during a transitional phase in the factory? Who knows ... if you know, please let me know!
Frank only sent the first photo through initially, asking me if I knew anything about a Kawai guitar which looked like a KS-11, but which had a closed headstock. I admit that my first thought was that the guitar had suffered a headstock break at some point in its life and been repaired by transplanting a "normal" headstock onto the neck. That theory was supported (in my mind at least) by Frank's report that the neck had warped, and was currently being repaired by a luthier.
But I was wrong ... this is clearly an original Kawai headstock design. And - apparently - Oliver's guitar has the same headstock. So perhaps Kawai sold a slightly different variant in Germany?
As I said above ... If you know, please let me know!
And thanks to Frank for shaing his photos.