Very reminiscent of Heit guitars, with that curvy cutaway at the butt. This pickguard is seen on only a few Kawai-made guitars, and often only with this type of pickup. Pickguard material and design is another piece I look at. I often look at the neck plates for similarities to help identify and date, but more often than not, neck plates don’t offer up much. This is about as nondescript a neck plate as you’d ever come across and doesn’t really offer a clue as to who, or when this guitar was made. I’ve seen a few different versions of this type of pickup, and I’ve seen guitars similar to this branded as “Kawai” and “Mayfair.” They were designed very well and I love them! All the pickups read out around 7k and there is one option on the rotary switch that combines the bridge and middle pickups for a nice 13k output. These pickups are very strong and not microphonic at all. The Japanese were really copying Italian designs in the mid 60s, and I think the mid-60s was the high time for Italian electric guitar success, so the pickups in vintage Japanese guitars can sometimes point to year of origin. They’re like pseudo-copies of Italian pickups, particularly Eko pickups.
![egmond guitar value egmond guitar value](https://guitars.azureedge.net/aza/user/gear/1966-egmond-typhoon-electric-bas-red-1.jpg)
When I first saw this guitar I noticed the pickups right away. Of course this is all my opinion and I’m sure some of my presumptions can be argued, but what the hey, I’m giving it a whirl! For this post, I figured I’d use this wonderful old Kawai electric to show how vintage Japanese guitars can be dated and researched.