Tokai Love Rock LS-196
guitar
Has sold for €1,500 over 2020–2026, across 14 used sales. Too few in the last two years for a typical price today.
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Not enough sold data for a typical price. 3 for sale, from €1,309.
About the Tokai Love Rock LS-196
The LS196 is a Premium Series Love Rock from the late 2010s. Tokai's model numbers are the Japanese list price in thousands of yen, so the same guitar was the LS160 in 2012 and the LS186 in 2016, became the LS214 as the price rose, and is the LS201 under the numbering introduced in 2024. The specification is the Premium recipe: a two-piece Canadian maple top on a one-piece African mahogany back, a one-piece mahogany neck set with a deep joint (the long tenon), an asymmetric U profile, 22 medium-jumbo Sanko frets over the binding on a 625 mm scale with a 43 mm bone nut and Indian rosewood board, Gotoh SD90-SL tuners, Tokai's HLS-VB bridge with brass saddles and HLS-VT aluminium tailpiece, PAF-Vintage MK2 alnico 5 pickups, CTS pots, orange-drop capacitors, Switchcraft jack and switch, and a nitrocellulose finish.
Two headstocks carry the name. The Love Rock LS196 is the regular production guitar; the Reborn Old LS196 is a limited run made for Tokai's German distributor, reviving the script Tokai used for a few months in 1980. Underneath it is the same guitar, long tenon, lacquer, CTS pots, MK2 pickups, with a semi-gloss VOS nitro finish and aged hardware, and on some the aged Gotoh bridge carries zinc saddles where the Love Rock's Tokai bridge has brass. It is a different thing from the LS1-R8/R9 and LS2 Reborn Old models, another German-market run with Faber hardware and pickups, taller frets and bodies selected under 4 kg. Owners date their LS196s from 2016 to 2020. The model is not written on the guitar: a Premium is told by the deep joint visible in the neck-pickup cavity and by its brown-and-pink case, and a certificate of authenticity should come with it, though shops often lose them. The CTS pots are a Premium fitting; recent Vintage Series Tokais carry Korean-made pots instead.
For sale right now
The best-priced as cards, a row of them; every other ad as a line, by ask. Each ask is the seller’s own number; the platform’s mark opens the listing. Each one says when we last confirmed it at its source: the price and availability are from that visit, so check the marketplace before you go.
1 local pickup ad in Portugal, on OLX Portugal. Showing 1 local pickup ad in Portugal, on OLX Portugal. Local pickup near you, in Portugal: 1 ad on OLX Portugal.
OLX Portugal
eBay United States
ReverbPrice history
Every recorded sale, one point each: 44 of them, placed by the day the ad went up. Too few sales to draw a trend through them without inventing one, so the points speak for themselves. Condition is mixed, so some of the spread is a mint against a fair rather than the market moving.
Recent sales by listing date
| Listed | Price | Condition | From | Platform | The listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Jul 2026 | €1,209$1,400 as sold | excellent |  United States | Reverb | Details |
| 15 May 2026 | €1,778$1,996 as sold | excellent |   Estonia | Reverb | Details |
| 11 Dec 2024 | €1,123$1,300 as sold | mint | United States | Reverb | Details |
| 17 Mar 2023 | €1,920$2,156 as sold | mint |  Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 27 Dec 2022 | €2,156$2,421 as sold | new |  United Kingdom | Reverb | Details |
A date is the day the ad went up. Marketplaces do not publish the day a sale closed; each of these had sold by the time we recorded it, in August 2026 and October 2026. A price is what the listing last asked, converted at that day’s rate.
Show all 44 recorded sales
| Listed | Price | Condition | From | Platform | The listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Apr 2026 | €1,560$1,806 as sold | excellent |  Canada | Reverb | Details |
| 24 Dec 2023 | €1,514$1,700 as sold | excellent | United States | Reverb | Details |
| 28 Mar 2023 | €1,559$1,750 as sold | excellent | United States | Reverb | Details |
| 3 Oct 2022 | €1,606$1,795 as sold | very good | United States | Reverb | Details |
| 29 Sept 2022 | €950$1,100 as sold | excellent |  Singapore | Reverb | Details |
| 20 Jul 2022 | €1,683$1,889 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 10 Apr 2022 | €974$1,093 as sold | new |  Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 9 Feb 2022 | €1,738$1,951 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 3 Feb 2022 | €1,564$1,756 as sold | new |  Netherlands | Reverb | Details |
| 27 Jan 2022 | €1,564$1,756 as sold | new | Netherlands | Reverb | Details |
| 27 Jan 2022 | €1,658$1,920 as sold | new |  Indonesia | Reverb | Details |
| 30 Dec 2021 | €1,252$1,450 as sold | excellent | United States | Reverb | Details |
| 18 Dec 2021 | €1,908$2,142 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 26 Nov 2021 | €1,730$1,942 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 20 Nov 2021 | €1,882$2,109 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 18 Nov 2021 | €1,826$2,050 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 10 Nov 2021 | €972$1,091 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 10 Nov 2021 | €972$1,091 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 14 Sept 2021 | €1,880$2,110 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 3 Sept 2021 | €1,286$1,489 as sold | new | Estonia | Reverb | Details |
| 25 Jul 2021 | €972$1,091 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 13 Mar 2021 | €1,523$1,709 as sold | mint | United Kingdom | Reverb | Details |
| 22 Dec 2020 | €1,544$1,733 as sold | new | Netherlands | Reverb | Details |
| 19 Dec 2020 | €1,631$1,831 as sold | mint |  France | Reverb | Details |
| 18 Dec 2020 | €972$1,091 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 8 Dec 2020 | €1,387$1,557 as sold | mint | United Kingdom | Reverb | Details |
| 28 Nov 2020 | €1,523$1,709 as sold | mint | United Kingdom | Reverb | Details |
| 20 Nov 2020 | €1,738$1,951 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 7 Oct 2020 | €1,735$1,947 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 2 Oct 2020 | €1,738$1,951 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 25 Dec 2019 | €2,394$2,687 as sold | new |  Australia | Reverb | Details |
| 21 Dec 2019 | €926$1,035 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 21 Dec 2019 | €973$1,087 as sold | new | Japan | Reverb | Details |
| 12 Jun 2019 | €2,216$2,487 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 12 Jun 2019 | €2,216$2,487 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 12 Jun 2019 | €2,216$2,487 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 26 May 2019 | €2,339$2,621 as sold | new | Australia | Reverb | Details |
| 30 Jul 2018 | €1,632$1,828 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
| 30 Jul 2018 | €1,608$1,805 as sold | new | Spain | Reverb | Details |
A date is the day the ad went up. Marketplaces do not publish the day a sale closed; each of these had sold by the time we recorded it, in August 2026 and October 2026. A price is what the listing last asked, converted at that day’s rate.
Cheapest live: Japan €1,309 · 
Belgium €2,295 · before shipping
14 recorded sales of the Tokai Love Rock LS-196 from 2020–2026, all-time around €1,500. Too few in the last two years to quote a typical used price. Cheapest live €1,309 before shipping. Figures computed 18 October 2026.
What owners have said elsewhere
Paraphrased from 48 discussion threads among 39 owners, 2021-2026. No names, nothing quoted.
The LS196 is, more than any other modern Tokai, the guitar owners went out to buy a Gibson Standard and came home with instead. It is the main guitar of several, one retired a PRS McCarty for it, another has had it as number one for five years, and is called the best Les Paul its owner has had, better than a Gibson Standard for playability and value, and by one owner second only to a Custom Shop Black Beauty costing three times as much. The dissent is a single owner of both who says neither is better and the rest is hype. The neck gets its own praise: a rounded profile between a 59 and a 60, chunkier than the cheaper Love Rocks but no baseball bat. The PAF-Vintage MK2 pickups split the room, some keep them as exactly the old Les Paul sound they wanted, others find the neck pickup muddy or the set too modern and fit Monty's, Tornade, Seymour Duncan Seth Lover, Antiquity or Alnico II Pro, Gibson Burstbucker or 8Bomb PAF clones. Reborn Old examples are found mostly through Germany and Spain, with used ones turning up on Reverb.