1978 Takamine F-385 12-String Acoustic Guitar

Vintage Japanese Martin copy from the lawsuit era. Some cosmetic defects, but still rock solid

Sticking with the made in Japan theme, this beauty was yet another thrift store find. Its amazing what people will give away. After parting with the 1995 G335 a couple of summers ago, I'd been looking for another Takamine 12-string and was very fortunate to have this one fall in to my lap.

It plays nice and easy, but it definitely needs a setup and some intonation work. I always set up my 12-strings with extra light strings and usually add this in on recordings to accentuate certain sections with arpeggios, just slightly in the mix.

Something occurred to me as I was taking the photos of this guitar; the date is stamped onto one of the braces around the soundhole, just like the old Carlos acoustic guitars featured here. The Carlos models that I've owned had a date stamped there from 1980-85 and the font on the stamp looks identical. The big hole in that theory is the fact that Takamines were made in Japan until at least the mid-80s and Carlos guitars were made in Korea. Of course, some of the early Jasmine models were made in Korea, so maybe it's not a completely crackpot theory.

Thanks for looking, more high-resolution photos here.