Repairers might know???

[Dekka]

I bought an old Suzuki parlour on ebay and am having a hard time identifying it.
Seller said he believed it was made in the 1950's. Based on what I managed to google up about serial numbers,the first two digits suggest 1943.
The bridge looks like it is designed for nylon strings however I have found many owners of similar Suzukis using them as steel stringed guitars. ??? The neck is apparently "Steel reinforced" but I'm skeptical that these were intended for steel strings.
I did a rough sketch of the bracing; pretty basic, I s'pose. One back brace has let go but it looks like an easy fix.
Does anyone have any experience with these? (I am aware they are a mass-produced item but as my first acoustic was a Suzuki, I have a soft-spot for them.)

[jeffhigh]

Show us the bridge, Dekka
You might get away with extra lights -10's.
Or the bridge might pull off.....
If it has no compensation slope to the saddle it wont play in tune with steels

[Kim]

Can't really help with your question Dekka cause I've never seen that vintage. However I do wish you the best of luck with it because I share your soft spot for old Suzuki guitars. I still have a Suzuki (SSS logo) Nagoya factory built dredie. The bracing pattern is direct copy of CF Martin and the glue squeeze and other tell tails clearly show it was put together by and earthling...pity about the plywood top but with heavy strings and hand, she would manage to cut through and somehow it managed to survive some extremely testing times which most guitars never could...

[Dekka]

Definitely no compensation angle on the bridge. Shaft diameter on the tuners is smaller than on a classical nylon.
Fret-board wear suggests steel strings. Hmmm?
I'll get some pics up tomorrow.

[Dekka]

I realised this morning that I told a lie...My first guitar was a Hondo; absolute shit-box! 1/2" action and tone like a shoe-box....must have blocked it from my memory.
My first REAL guitar was a Suzuki W-500. All laminated but solid as and still playing well.
This No9 looks like it has had a hard life but then so have I. I wouldn't mind finding out how old it actually is, though.

[simso]

It shouldnt have steel strings on it, I know it does, but theres no compensation so it would never play in tune.

Age would be about 1980, so not super vintage

[Dekka]

Thanks for that, Steve. Definitely had a hard life then.lol

[Kim]

Had a quick look around and apparently the yanks split the Suzuki Violin Co in two at the end of WW2. One of these companies became the Suzuki Nagoya violin co and adopted the circular 'triple S' logo and these are well regarded for there build quality..even the laminated top models.

The Nagoya Co's first model guitars had a simple two digit sequence starting from "01" and then on to 02, 03 etc. Later models adopted an alpha prefix e.g 'W' indicated a western style or dreadnought guitar. A guess may suggest that model 09 would slot in somewhere in between the mid 60's to 70's and I say this because my own old hack has a 'W' prefix and i seem to recall that the rest of it's serial # indicates it was made in 81.

As for strings? The saddle is not compensated but apparently sales literature from that time recommends steel strings for the 09 model. I would not be surprised with that because at the time i imagine the focus for a company trying to build an export market against still strong prejudice of WW2 and the language barrier would have been on looks, price and robust reliability to try and over come the "Jap Crap" reputation that had resulted from Japan's export of sub-standard products throughout the 50's. In that, 'and' in the simple fact that many of Japan's 'modern' skilled workforce were killed in the war to leave much of the R&D in the hands of older men, many of whom may never have even heard of intonation, i reckon it's reasonable to believe that they may have overlooked that detail.

http://nagoyasuzukiacoustic.blogspot.com.au

Cheers
Kim

[nnickusa]

It might be a bit older than that, I think. The "Steel re-inforced neck" badge came in in the 60's, most notably on Matsumoku Gakki products like Greco, Vantage, etc. So, without further info, I'd just lump it into the 60's-early 80's range....Remember that the Japanese serial number systems were n otoriously absent until 75 or so, and never use that site guitar dater, or whatever it is, because for Jap stuff, it's ALWAYS wrong....

[Dekka]

Thanks, guys.
The neck block is stamped43 11 23. I erroneously assumed this to be 23rd Nov 1943.
Since it does have a serial No, does that then date it as after '75?
I'm really only asking out of curiosity. I wanted to get a beat up old nylon-stringer to do comedy gigs with because the 000 that I made is too valuable to me. I stress out that someone might toss a stubbie at it.
I plan on installing some sort of transducer on the inside of the sound-board and run an external preamp with it.
I appreciate the info though. I managed to find a heap more questions about these than answers.

- Derek

[Kim]

Thanks, guys.
The neck block is stamped43 11 23. I erroneously assumed this to be 23rd Nov 1943.
Since it does have a serial No, does that then date it as after '75?
- Derek

At a guess Derek I would say no..As Nick has suggested the early Jap serial numbers can be a bugger to work out..i.e. IIRC in order to work out the manufacture date of much of the very early Yamaha 'Nippon' Gakki stuff, one needs to count forward that amount represented by the serial number in years months and days from April 29, 1901 being the birth date of The Emperor Showa (AKA Hirahito)..Told ya...there a real bugga

Cheers

Kim

[nnickusa]

Derek, that could just as easily be the 43rd guitar, the 11th son made in his 23rd year of life.

Seriously.....

[Tod Gilding]

You Might Find Something interesting here http://kisosuzuki.blogspot.com.au/

[Dekka]

You Might Find Something interesting here http://kisosuzuki.blogspot.com.au/

Tod, that's the site that offered this:-
Model #'s...
Re: the serial number: on many of the models the first one or two numbers in the serial number stands for the year in which it was manufactured; from the 60’s to the 80’s. I have never seen a definite 1950's guitar yet, mainly because I don't know enough about them yet.The other prefixes/suffixes ...W, C, S, VS, D, G, A, T, R, O, J...may follow other common meanings.
W = Western model
F= Folk Model
C= Cutaway
E=Electronics
K=?
S=Spruce (top)
VS= Violin Sunburst color
D=Dreadnaught shape
G=Grand Concert shape for classicals; some 'G' acoustics however had a Gallagher type headstock
A=?
T=? Takeharu sometimes
R=?
O=?
J=Jumbo shape
Going off the Emperor's birthday it would be the 21st of April 1945.
You know what?...I think I've already wasted way too much of everybody's time on this.

Maybe I should just telephone 43 11 23 in Japan and hope for the best.

[Tod Gilding]

Derek did you notice that this site links to other blogs like Suzuki classical Etc Those blogs might have something that helps solve the mystery I didn't look so I'm not sure but .

[simso]

There you go, to me it looked like the models from the 80's, It was just an assumption not based on any fact. Be cool if it was a 1943 guitar

[Dekka]

On the site Tod mentioned I found a pic of a No7 with a caption saying it was built in the 1960's so I'm tending to think No9 is probably towards the 1970's.

[Kim]

On the site Tod mentioned I found a pic of a No7 with a caption saying it was built in the 1960's so I'm tending to think No9 is probably towards the 1970's.

Most of that site deals with Kiso Suzuki. That's the other half of the original Suzuki Violin Co the yanks split up at the end of WW2. Your guitar has the triple "S" logo on the labels so its a "Suzuki Nagoya"...and a model number 9 is probably around mid 60's to mid 70's vintage. As a point of interest Mr Yari cut his teeth at the Suzuki Violin Co..

[kiwigeo]

On the site Tod mentioned I found a pic of a No7 with a caption saying it was built in the 1960's so I'm tending to think No9 is probably towards the 1970's.

Most of that site deals with Kiso Suzuki. That's the other half of the original Suzuki Violin Co the yanks split up at the end of WW2. Your guitar has the triple "S" logo on the labels so its a "Suzuki Nagoya"...and a model number 9 is probably around mid 60's to mid 70's vintage. As a point of interest Mr Yari cut his teeth at the Suzuki Violin Co..

Which Yari.....S or K?

[Kim]

Which Yari.....S or K?

That would be both S and 'G' Yairi Martin, because 'K' at that time was just a twinkle if his father's eye.

Apparently both Sadao and Giichi Yairi had apprenticed at the Suzuki Violin Co in Nagoya during the 1920's. After becoming master luthier, Giichi Yairi had left SVC around 1929 to start his own workshop which would employ all his four sons, of which Kazuo Yairi was one.

Around 1935 Sadao Yairi also left SVC to start 'his' own workshop in which he guided his son Hiroshi Yairi through the trade.

When about 18yo, Kazuo Yairi had left his father's workshop to start out on his own, and eventually, his three brothers came to work with him.

Despite popular belief the famed 'Yairi Brothers' were in fact Sadao and Giichi and not Sadao and his nephew Kazuo and there appears to be no evidence suggesting that Kazuo Yairi had ever collaborated with his uncle. In fact Kazuo Yairi had stated as much one time in a magazine article...Until it was stolen 20 odd years ago in a house break, a mate of mine had a very nice K Yairi semi acoustic. I remember that guitar not for it's tone, because being a thinline semi meant by nature it would sound a bit thin when not amped, but it played beautifully, and the fit and finish was such you just knew your hands were filled with solid quality.

Cheers

Kim

[tippie53]

About 1920 the trend to steel strings took hold. Many didn't realize that the compensation angle was needed. Martin also did a non angled bridge. By about 1923 you started seeing the angle included. The bracing pattern is a standard ladder brace layout. The give away that I see is the switch from spruce to maple for a bridge plate.
Gut strings often used a spruce plate , steel went with maple

[Dekka]

Well, I made a new nut for it, put on some nylon strings....
Plays "OK" from frets 1 to 5; from there on the action just gets ridiculously high. I chopped down the saddle so that less than 2mm is proud of the bridge slot and it's still a bit high.
Bridge also has been previously reset but almost 3mm off centre towards bass side.
Bridge plate is Spruce and has about an 8mm hole through its centre? WTF???
This guitar has had steels on it and the nut spacing is pretty tight for nylons at 41mm.
Doesn't appear to have any braces that have let go.
Neck is straight, which is no surprise since it's as thick as a bloody cricket bat
If I didn't mention it earlier, this beast has a zero fret. Not sure how long that idea has been around.

I don't really want to take the back off this thing so I'll try a lower profile bridge and see how that goes.

[Kim]

Well, I made a new nut for it, put on some nylon strings....
Plays "OK" from frets 1 to 5; from there on the action just gets ridiculously high. I chopped down the saddle so that less than 2mm is proud of the bridge slot and it's still a bit high.
Bridge also has been previously reset but almost 3mm off centre towards bass side.
Bridge plate is Spruce and has about an 8mm hole through its centre? WTF???
This guitar has had steels on it and the nut spacing is pretty tight for nylons at 41mm.
Doesn't appear to have any braces that have let go.
Neck is straight, which is no surprise since it's as thick as a bloody cricket bat
If I didn't mention it earlier, this beast has a zero fret. Not sure how long that idea has been around.

I don't really want to take the back off this thing so I'll try a lower profile bridge and see how that goes.

Dekka I would not be in a hurry to lower the profile of the bridge, doing so is always a band-aid repair that steals away tone and volume and always leads to more work than it saves later on down the track....Measured at the front edge of the bridge, you really want to try and keep around 1/2" between the bass E string and the top of the guitar.

I reckon if relief is workable yet the action is too high from fret 5 on, it sounds more like the neck needs a reset than anything else. Failing that then perhaps the bridge has rolled but that is easy checked with the strings in tune by looking across the top from the side to see if the top has excessive belly behind the bridge and has sunk forward of the soundhole??

Spacing at the nut at 41mm further confirms the guitar was designed for steels strings even if there is no compensation, and in that vein, unless there is other more obvious signs, the bridge being off set by 3mm either side of centre confirms more that this model guitar had been made to a market 'of it's day' more so than the bridge having been repositioned at some time. Perhaps the 8mm hole in the bridge plate is an install point for an optional single bud piezo pickup? This could be a further clue of vintage as single buds were about the only option for an acoustic guitar during the 70's.

If the neck does need a reset then I would be incline to install an adjustable truss rod while the FB is off so you can then re-profile the neck and slim it down a bit. To finish the resto if indeed you wanted to go that far, then a new compensated bridge re-centered to the FB would see this guitar playing better than it ever has.

Cheers

Kim

[Dekka]

Thanks, Kim

Definitely got a bridge belly issue.
With the chopped-down saddle, the gap from top to E string is 11mm. At the sound-hole the gap is 14mm.
Action at twelfth is 5mm. I reckon if I put steel strings on this as it is it'll probably fold in half!
Do you reckon I could add braces around the sound-hole and upper bout while the guitar was under tension the other way? When I place the back of the upper bout across my knee I'm able to flex the guitar to a more normal looking top.
Where the sides meet at the neck joint looks weird also; out of square. And where the sides meet at the tail block the out of squareness is repeated. The guitar was either assembled with the back 4mm further "North" than the top OR it has crept that far???
Who would have thought that an instrument purchased on eBay would have so many issues?

[Dekka]

Forgot to mention that the original bridge position is visible as a bald spot in the lacquer. They have also moved the treble side forward a few mm; possibly an attempt at compensation or possibly just a bodgy job.