There is quite a family tree of Japanese made guitar brands, with multiple brands coming out of much fewer guitar making factories, and then distributed by another bunch of companies. One day I'd like to made a clear and easy to follow list of these brands, factories and distributors, but for today I'm just going to draw one link, between Daion Co., Ltd. and Joodee branded guitars.
This brochure is advertising the JooDee brand of guitars, but very clearly has DAION CO., LTD. in the bottom right hand corner of the cover. On the inside the JooDee range appears to have offered "copies" of the Fender Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision and Jazz Basses, as well as what looks like their own Bass design, and various copies of the Gibson Les Paul and SG.
JooDee guitars are mentioned as coming out of the Dyna Gakki factory, who are stated as "making the Yamaki/Daion/Founder/Joodee solid body guitars for Daion in the 1970s and early 1980s". This statement implies that Daion was both a brand and a company distributing other brands.
From what I've read the JooDee guitars are supposed to be, like the Daion's we know and love, a pretty decent instrument, and if they did come out of the same factory, although differently branded, at a similar price point you would expect them to be a similarly impressive guitar.
Anyway, enough of the blabbering, here's the brochure!
Great site you have here!
ReplyDeleteYou don't happen to have a close up picture of the Les Paul part of that catalogue? If you do, could you please contact me on skaatan @ hotmail com?
Thanks
Marius
Hi Marius,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that picture is all I could find, maybe someone else out there has a copy of it they could submit?
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThose guitars certainly look to share the same looking bridge and pickups as some of the Daion models. Whilst I couldn't say with any real certainty that they were made in the Daion factory, it would appear more than likely that they shared components at the very least.
If the quality is anything like the proper Daion models I'm sure they are very nice guitars.
Might be worth putting some of your links on the Facebook group for Daion owners, "The Daion Guitar" https://www.facebook.com/groups/11534409076/?fref=ts
I dare say there may be more knowledgeable people on there than me about these things.
Cheers
Darren