Two models were introduced - the TSG 50 and TSG 60. The first catalogue in which I have found the TSG featured is from 1984. The precision required with the neck angling and scarf jointing at the headstock add great complexity to the build. As a novice guitar builder myself, I can testify to the fact that making a set neck with an angled headstock (like on the TSG) is far more difficult than a bolt-on neck. lookalikes in the shops, all bearing the Tokai name and aiming to prove that they can get as close to an original Gibson as they can a Fender' (Gary Cooper, InTune magazine, 1985). Now we're seeing Tokai 335 simulacra, Explorer dupes, Les Paul types, and even S.G. It was the natural starting point for a whole host of Japanese makers to begin with in their climb up from obscurity.Inevitably, though, Tokai have turned their gaze on Gibson. Their bolt-on necks and simple bodies, rudimentary hardware and machine-easy shaping made them inevitable targets for a mass production orientated nation to whom originality in guitar design came about as naturally as walking does to a fish. Fenders (not to disparage them in any way, of course) were designed from the start to be mass produced. A review of the TSG 60 CH in 1985 said, ' Copying a Gibson is a different task altogether.
