The Electra Forums

Hi, I just scored an electra on e-bong ($92 with shipping ) It looks like a workingman, either an X280 or an X290. How can I tell which when I get it?

Thanks in advance.

By the way as a bass player I always smiled at how guitarists always were looking for one more guitar as I have had one main bass (an APII) for over 20 years. Now that I am playing more guitar I too have the aquasition bug.

X280 & 290 have bolt on necks. X280 is natural walnut finish, X290 is black finish.

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"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." - Groucho Marx

Thanks,

Its black so an X290.

Does anyone know if its an Uncle Matt? I have three APII Uncle Matts so I am curious.

Most (non-PCM) Electra's are generally assumed to be "Uncle Matt's," in that they were made in the Matsumoku factory. The X290 certainly fits in that territory.

This Electra board used to share a board with the Aria Pro admirers. It was a little easier to see all the "Uncle Matt" characteristics back then. But, then, nothing gold can stay!

Hope you enjoy your new guitar!

Matthew

The Workingman is definitely a Matsumoku-made guitar. And very much in the same tradition as the Skylarks and the CS400's and such.

However, many Electras were not made by Matsumoku, and this is actually the real reason the Electra models were removed from the Guitar Gallery site- because so many of them are not in fact Matsumoku, but Fujigen, Terada, and Kasuga-made.

Figuring out which models were made at which factory is part of the fun of Electras, and also accounts for their considerable range in quality.

AFAIK it's safe to say that all the X-models were made by Matsumoku. These started appearing in 75 or so, and I believe this is when SLM started ordering guitars directly from the factory rather than getting them through distributors Arai and Hoshino. If you look at the numbering of other brands, such as Ibanez, you see very similar 4-digit model numbers just like our 2256's and such. From what I can tell these numbers were assigned by the distributors to guitars they designed and then made available to brands like Electra, Elger, etc., and of course these were all copies of Fender, Gibson, Rick, etc.

Around 75 SLM hired Tom Presley to come up with their own guitar designs so they could order direct from the factory, cut out the distributors and at the same time get away from the old 'lawsuit' copies. By many accounts it was SLM in particular who was annoying Gibson and the others, and they probably came under the most direct pressure to quit offering copies.

Some pre-75 Electras are most probably Matsumoku, but I couldn't tell you for sure which ones. We're still trying to figure that out.

After 4 years, I'm still confused about the factory thing. Looks like I had my Electra factory history basically backward. Sorry about that.

Matthew

Not so far off Matthew. From what I've found, like Xman is saying, 1972-1975 SLM Electras are mostly non Matsumoku while 1976-1984, the majority are Matsumoku (I think over 90% of MPC, Omega & Phoenix are Uncle Matts). As for the PCM Electra's I've seen, they are more like door mats than Uncle Matts

XMan, that's interesting stuff on SLM being the ones who torqued Gibson off. I've never heard that, but I can sure see it as SLM based the company on Les Paul, SG, and Gibson basses as well as Strats, Teles & Ricky's. Zero original designs in the first 4 years.

_________________
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." - Groucho Marx

Thanks to all for the information. It is nice to have a feel for the history of an instrument you play.

To potentialy open a can of worms, Can the quality variations be specificly linked to specific factorys? Also, I was under the impression that some of the PCM's came from the same factorys as the SLM's and that some models were very close. Are the SLM's that are close to the PCM's the ones that tend to be of lesser quality?

That's generally a safe statement from what I've seen. The later Matsumoku guitars are mostly of better quality than the other factories, although there's a few exceptions I'm sure. I have also heard more than once that SLM & PCM bought from the same source at times.

_________________
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." - Groucho Marx

Here are my guesses- and they're good strong guesses so far as you don't take them as gospel:

The early PCM's (the ones with X headstock) are of unknown manufacture- the hardware looks like Teisco, the pickups look like the Maxons that Arai was using.

The early SLM's (meaning the ones that appear in the SLM catalog, though PCM may have been selling some of the same ones) were from both Hoshino and Arai. Hoshino got guitars from Fujigen and MAtsumoku, while Arai got guitars from Kasuga, Matsumoku and Arai (themselves). I suspect some may have also been coming from Terada, though I don't know which distributor. So in the first half of the 70's it was a free-for-all.

Starting 75 or so SLM started (we think) getting guitars direct from Matsumoku and Terada. By 81 or so the Terada models were gone and they were all Matsumoku, through 85-6 when the name changed to Westone. After that, everything was from Korea (and rife with the dreaded scarf neck joint)

From everything I can see, PCM Electras were made by Kasuga- they have so much in common with other Kasuga brands. However, SHinto Arai claims that he got Matsumoku building guitars first by having them do necks. So that suggests that some early models that came through Arai may have had Matsumoku necks on bodies made by others. I fear this is one detail we may never know for sure, but it sure explains the feeling I get with some of those early Arai guitars, like the early Goya-Grecos, that the neck is good and the body is junk.

Are the makers generally a means of telling quality? Sure. In general Matsumoku and Fujigen are good to excellent, while Kasuga are poor to good. (Terada I don't know well enough to say). If you look at the other major brands made by each, that tells you a lot about the quality. I think we all know Matsumoku was high quality. Fujigen went on to build for Fender Japan (and continued making Ibanez as well)- high quality. Terada went on to become the manufacturer of Gretsch, so... high quality in some ways, although that name has always been more about style than innovation or excellence. Kasuga went on to produce Cort and Hondo, and a host of low-end beginner instruments, and that's what we know them for, although they did make a few high-end models. I have at least one PCM Electra, a strange tele with binding, which is clearly high quality, and in many details like like other Kasuga. Kasugas went on to produce Epiphone, as that name became to Gibson what Squier is to Fender- a budget version.

Most evidence and rumor says Matsumoku never made PCM Electras. However, I think it's still possible some early ones did have Matt necks. Likewise the general opinion that all PCM's are low quality is not always true, there are a few that seem pretty good. Likewise I wonder if some PCM Electras, like the solid body color strats and such, actually came out in the 80's, not the 70's- they appear to be very early and crude Korean manufacture.

So it's a tangled web of intrigue and mystery, which is how we like it. Does that help?

Oh, duh, that wasn't what you were asking.

The problem is, we have no PCM catalogs, none. So the PCM's are the models we can't find in any SLM catalog- see how inaccurate that might be? And then we have no idea of some of the SLM models were being sold by PCM, so we can't really have any basis on which to compare. I wish I did know a for-sure example of a PCM LP versus an SLM LP- the closest would be comparing a PCM strat, like the one with the thorn-shape headstock, with an SLM Electra Avenger strat, which is very much like a CBS style headstock- the SLM is better, but they're really different, very different takes on imitating the same original. So I'm not sure that's a good comparison.

Thanks to all for you for your help, knowledge and sharing of the above. This will be my first Electra (hopefully not my last) and I am getting excited waiting for it. I will let you know how it works out.

Thanks again