"Greco" is an essential key word when we talk about "Japan Vintage" guitars. Through out '70s to '80s, Greco had introduced many attractive guitars not only law-suit copies but also unique original design guitars. For Japanese guitar kids in '80s (like me), Greco was the first choice with its quality, affordable price range and its purchasing availability. Almost all guitar shop in Japan had stock of Greco guitars and it was enormously advertised on some guitar magazines and even with TV shows that was sponsored by Greco/Kanda Shokai.
Greco is the brand established in 1960s by Kanda Shokai the whole seller of music instrument located in Kanda, Tokyo. In late '60s, they made good result with VB series (copy of Hofner violin bass), and just after the first show of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple in Japan in 1971, they launched EG-360 Les Paul copy and SE-430 Stratocaster copy model, which can be said as the starting point of Japanese law suit guitars that comes out by some other Japanese brands onwards. These early generation guitars have be said as not as good as later generation ones though, it was made with craftsman's enthusiasm that was going to be amazingly improved in later generation such as "Super Real Series" and "Mint Collection Series".
In 1975 Greco also started to introduce original model "MR" (signature for Mick Ralphs) followed by "GO Series" (means Greco Original) in '77 and so on. These original models are developed to say good bye to copy models, so it was big challenge for them. Making good guitar was more important than to be profitable for them! With its high level of craft quality of Fujigen the manufacturer of Greco guitars as well as good old days wood materials that generate fantastic tone, these vintage Greco guitars got many collectors around the word nowadays.
The detailed information of each Greco guitars will be introduced on this blog.