If it's a high quality guitar, there's probably a site somewhere listing the people who have been luthiers for the company. I know if you search for the guitar company's name in Wikipedia, you get one article for a guitar designer for the company.

Yes, I already searched extensively. There is very little info on the company as it was destroyed in Kobe earthquake. There are no detailed records but few catalog pages and "old" musicians who remember those guitars.Also Japanese masters used different coding that other builders, so it was hard to find clues on how to determine age of guitars.

I know who made it (Maya musical instrumen CO) , I just needed to find a way to help people determine age of these fine guitars. I imagine there is more info on Japanese forums but I cannot browse them as my knowledge of language is...well shameful.I read almost every page that mentions model of the guitar and company that built them.

You've all been very helpful and I am grateful for that.

Thanks! :rheart:

Here's another shot of the red stamp.
If anyone can read what it says, it would be great.
If not, you've already helped me.





Thanks again!

Well, I've already given you the date off the guitar. (And then I got corrected on the year immediately below that.)

Yes,you did. That's all I needed.
Other stuff is just a bonus for me.

I can't see the pictures right now, but I'll ask around. I've got a lot of friends who are really into guitars- some of whom are luthiers themselves.

By the way, Masaegu, that +25年 thing is genius! I cannot believe I never noticed that. That will come in serious handy.

Somewhere along the line they introduced that in high school... If I recall correctly, the 25 rule wasn`t just +25. It was also that 昭和 started in 1925 on 12/25.

I remember 大正 being +11, but can`t remember 明治.

For Meiji (1868 - 1912), it is not simple as it spans two centuries but it's basically + 67. The base year is 1800 rather than 1900.

Looking it up afterward, I realized that was probably the reason I couldn`t remember... Or that there had been no easy and convenient rule introduced for converting the years to begin with.

I think there were a few others used for other periods in history, but I can`t remember any of them now... Especially some of the earlier stuff, as my Japanese wasn`t all that good.

Honestly, this and the base-10,000 system are the only two things I wish would change about Japanese. And even then, the year one is only out of laziness. The numbering system, on the other hand....

Man, I'm really talented with math, and it's so frustrating to have to sit and think for 30+ seconds every time I want to say a number bigger than 100,000 out loud. :/