Second-Hand Japanese Guitars: Which Ones, and How to Read the Details

Why used guitars out of Japan turn up in better shape

Volume comes first. Japan has a lot of players and several large second-hand chains buying and selling every day, so you can usually line up a few examples of the same model side by side.

Then there is how they were kept. Most of these guitars lived in a case, in a room that never got hot. Far fewer of them spent years leaning against a wall.

Private sellers are a different trade. The price is often better than a shop's, but how much detail you get depends entirely on how much the seller knows about guitars.

Lines sold only in Japan, and the MIJ / CIJ label

The lines worth hunting are the ones that were never on a Thai shop wall.

• •Tokai, Greco and Fernandes or Burny built classic-shape guitars through the seventies and eighties whose woodwork and assembly stand next to the originals, and plenty of them were never exported.
• •ESP's Edwards and Navigator lines sell mainly at home in Japan, and are not the same instruments as the ESP models you see in Thailand.
• •FGN, or Fujigen, is the factory that built guitars for several famous names before putting its own on the headstock.
• •Yamaha's SG and Ibanez j.custom are Japanese-built upper lines with specs the worldwide models do not share.

For a Japanese-made Fender, two things settle what it is. The lettering, on the headstock or the neck plate depending on the year, reads either Made in Japan or Crafted in Japan. Then the serial that follows it: the leading letter places the production run, and it is why two guitars that look identical sit far apart in price. If the listing has no photo of the serial, ask for one before you order.

Condition grades, and what the seller writes down

Shops grade condition with a letter, from S for near-new down through A, B and C. A grade B at one shop is not a B at another. Use the letter to build a shortlist and the written description and photos to decide.

What comes up often and moves the price:

• •Sold as-is, with no promise it works. Sometimes that means a loose jack, sometimes a twisted neck nothing will fix, and there is no obligation to say which. It ships home for the same cost as a good one, so cheaper is not automatically better value.
• •Neck bow. A shop that writes carefully says whether it bows up or back.
• •Fret life left, given as a percentage of new.
• •A scratchy noise from a volume or tone pot. Cheap to fix, but it tells you the guitar sat unplayed for a long time.
• •Modified, usually pickups or tuners. It pulls the price down even when the replacement parts are better than what came out.

Last, the case. The description names a hard case or a gig bag; if it names neither, there is no case. Settle that while you are still choosing.

What to do, and what to budget for, once it lands

A guitar leaving a Japanese home is used to air much drier than ours. In Thai humidity the wood takes moisture back on, the neck moves and the string height changes. That is normal, not a fault.

Open the box, then leave the guitar in its case at room temperature for a day or two. Then check the neck relief, set the truss rod, adjust the action and reset the intonation.

The thing to ask before you order is whether the truss rod still turns both ways. Some older necks have been tightened to the end of the thread, and listings almost never raise it on their own.

On an instrument several decades old, budget for a jack, pots or internal wiring as well. Those age on their own.

A guitar in its case is a long box, so shipping is priced on packed volume as much as weight. How each method works that out is on the shipping services page, and the ordering flow itself is in the Mercari ordering guide.

Frequently asked questions