Tokai LC60

About the Tokai LC60

The LC-60 is Tokai's Les Paul Custom copy of the vintage era (1979-85), LC is the Custom, LS the Standard. Most are all mahogany (a maple cap on some) with the split-diamond headstock inlay, though a few carry the plain logo or the Artisan-style inlay; the frets are edge-bound, the board is rosewood, only the LC-100 and LC-110 got ebony, and the boards were dyed darker from the mid-1980s, the headstock sits at 18 degrees, the finish looks like nitro in wine red, black or white, and the guitars are light: 3.5 to 3.9 kg, 8 lb 7 oz to just under 9 lb. Tokai's 57 PAF-stickered pickups of 1982-85 came in two versions, a thin-alnico one reading high 7k to low 8k and a thick-ceramic one at 18-20k, and the LC-60, like the SG of the era, got the hot ceramic set, about 19k, or 18k at the bridge and 12k at the neck on one. Owners date theirs from 1979 to 1985; a late-1990s Japanese LC exists too, catalogued with a mahogany body in wine red and basswood in black. Two checks: the fingerboard standing proud of the top is the neck angle, not a fault, and the 1990s, 2000s Korean LC has bridge posts in metal inserts where the Japanese guitar's screw straight into the body.

What owners have said elsewhere

Paraphrased from 21 discussion threads among 31 owners, 2021-2026. No names, nothing quoted.

Owners call the LC-60 thick and mean, light and comfortable, and better to play than most Gibsons they have tried, one has yet to find a Gibson as good, another gigs it in a heavy rock band whose members said not to change the pickups, a third calls it a favourite Les Paul Custom and an everyday tool; one who sold a 1984 to pay for a wedding still wishes otherwise. The hot ceramic pickups divide them: they do not clean up unless the volume comes right down and are called the weakest point of the guitar, so some fit Seymour Duncan 59/JB, Seth Lover or Antiquity sets, while others find them great through a good amp and keep them for originality. The dissent: one collector says Tokai is not the brand to shop for a Les Paul Custom, they mostly built Standards, and that the asking prices are absurd next to a Greco EG1000; another prefers late-1980s Grecos, and a third is no fan of the vintage Tokais after 1981.