The summer of '08 is basically over. I was in a number of very nice vintage guitar shops in Tokyo on my trip earlier this summer. I always seem to find some guitars that I have a holiday romance with in Tokyo nowadays and some of them I brought home. Until recently, it was always the case that you had to pay a lot more for a vintage piece in Japan. Like it has been here in the UK, the shop prices there consisted of the US price plus a substantial dealer’s margin. The situation changed for some reason and now, you can find a real bargain in Tokyo. I suppose as more and more vintage guitars were imported to Japan, there was a build up of a substantial local stock in Japan and given the stagnating Japanese economy since the '90s and the general practice of lower trade-in prices there, if the dealer does not charge a big margin, you can find some guitars below the US market price let alone the UK prices. Continue reading "Vintage Tokyo - 1974 and Now"