are samick guitars worth a damn?

jimistone

long standing member
I was in a music store this past weekend and looking at humbucker guitars (i play fenders but i have some tunes that call for humbucking tones)
the les pauls are way out of my ballpark...but i played a few to kind of get the feel so I could compare the cheaper guitars. All the cheaper guitars (including epiphones) sucked when compared to a gibson les paul....with the exception of one... a samick copy of a les paul. It was solid, played as good as the les pauls i was trying, had nice fretboard and headstock inlays, has a set neck, keys held the tuning well, tone was better than any of the other cheap guitars i played (very close to the les paul tone), and had a drop dead georgous birdseye maple top.

the samick was used, but in great shape. They want 300 bucks for it. That sounds like a decent price to me, but, i know nothing about samick guitars.
has anyone had any experiance with samick guitars. Any input would be appreciated. I haven't bought it yet...im thinking about it.
 
If its an artist series, Get it dude. they are the flagship line and built as solid with good woods as the gibsons. I have a L-5 and it is just like the Gibson. Notice how the cutaway is a little different? that is how Sammick is avoiding a lawsuit with gibson, that is how It is so close to the real thing.

Since Its a pawn shop,be sure to offer 200.00 first because they may take it or lower the price, depending on how long its been there.:cool:
 
Someone slap me if I'm wrong, but someone I trust told me...

Samick is the largest guitar manufacturer in the world. Almost all of the guitar manufacturers mid to low end models are made by Samick in Korea. Basically, if you're paying less than $7-800 for a guitar, it's probably a Samick, no matter what it says on the headstock.

Those Epiphones you were playing are probably made in the same factory as the Samick.

So the long and the short is... if you can get a guitar that you think compares to a Gibson LP for $300 or less, snap that shit up!
 
Lame Thrower,

I believe that you are correct. Samick is the largest manufacturer of guitar parts and a lot of the other guitar shops use their parts, even in their top of the line stuff. You just don't know when you are getting it.

As far as their high end, many of them are very good, but be sure to only buy one that you can try out because there is some inconsistency in the parts. I think that they will use what is available, so if they just did a parts run for Gibson, then there are a lot of LP parts laying around.

I was very close a few weeks ago to buying a Samick bass. I really liked the neck, but the body as a little too heavy for my tastes. It had some nice machine heads and the price was $250. If I had not recently bought another bass, I would probably own this one by now.
 
Lame Thrower is dead-on correct.
The high-end Samick guitars are definitely worth the money, so I'd get it. That price is pretty darned low for that guitar.

Another guitar that plays as good (many have said "even better" than an original Les Paul) is a Tokai LoveRock.
As a matter of fact, Tokai has been sued by both Fender and Gibson for making top-notch Strat's and Les Paul's for less than half the cost of the original. We're talking seriously high-quality woods, hardware, and especially craftsmanship, for a fraction of the cost of the real thing.
Though they're relatively unknown in the U.S., the Brits are really hot for these guitars because they're so cheap and yet, so good.
 
Lame Thrower said:
Someone slap me if I'm wrong, but someone I trust told me...

Samick is the largest guitar manufacturer in the world. Almost all of the guitar manufacturers mid to low end models are made by Samick in Korea. Basically, if you're paying less than $7-800 for a guitar, it's probably a Samick, no matter what it says on the headstock.

Those Epiphones you were playing are probably made in the same factory as the Samick.

Someone I trust told me the same thing. I thought he was just tryna knock my Epiphone LP Custom... lol.
 
This is the guitar I'm talking about, the Tokai Love Rock...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=851963234

There's a good reason that there's 8 bids on this guitar and the top bid is over a thousand bucks. It's a top-notch axe.

Check out these Tokai Strats, talk about sweet!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=851971891
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=851980663

There's already 18 bids on this one... (it's freakin' gorgeous!)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=852235763
 
yup, I tried the Loverock 2 years ago in Toronto.... awesome guitar!!! only CAN700. I was too poor then to get one... :( (spent my money on a Behringer mixer and JV1010 )

I was disappointed that I can't find any Tokai guitar while I was in Korea.... (some lower end Tokai are actually made there.... )

Speaking of samick, I have a samick folk guitar for some years now, and it sounds sweet and aged. :) I also have a Cort acoustic.... personally, I think Cort is THE korean guitar for price and quality.
 
thanks for your input guys...i really appreciate it

I havent bought the guitar yet. I was going to sell my strat ('66 model) and get a les paul. I have been offered a real good price for the strat. I have had the strat since i was 16...it was 10 years old (that should give you an idea of how old a fart i am.). I really don't want to part with that guitar even though I would make alot of money off the sale. The samick les paul is cheap enough (300 bucks) that i won't have to sell my '66 strat to buy it. the birdseye maple top is really unique and you would have to get a "les paul elegant" to get that in a gibson.

man, I never thought i would be considering the purchase of a korean les paul knockoff....after owning an Electra in the 70's (what a horrible guitar....tuners, sound, fit, playability...you name it, the Electra sucked in it).

speaking of tokia, There (is/was) a tokia firebird on e-bay...set neck.
I have wanted a firebird for a long time.....but I can't see 1500 bucks for a gibson....and im scared of the epiphone bolt on neck firebirds
 
jimistone said:
speaking of tokia, There (is/was) a tokia firebird on e-bay...set neck.
I have wanted a firebird for a long time.....but I can't see 1500 bucks for a gibson....and im scared of the epiphone bolt on neck firebirds

You'd better hurry up and make an offer, there's 19 bids and counting on that guitar! That Firebird looks sweeeet! ;)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=852130140

It's a "steal" if you get it for less than $750.
Time is running out!

Buck
 
Trak said:


Someone I trust told me the same thing. I thought he was just tryna knock my Epiphone LP Custom... lol.

That's not really true - Epiphone has their own shops - I have a friend who lives a few blocks from one.
 
Buck62,
I don't think time is running out. The same seller has sold a couple of tokia firebirds already(uses the same picture). they are going for 500 or so. He must have a line on where to get the new tokia firebirds. They are set neck and pretty close to gibson (didn't use the banjo tuners on the tokias)
 
Not to be rude, but it's Tokai, not Tokia. (pronounced: toe-kye)

Tokai makes guitars, Tokia is a distributor of baby stuff.

BTW, here's an EXTREMELY interesting story about how Stevie Ray Vaughn actually played Tokai Stratocasters, not Fender, back in the mid 80's....

http://www.flyingvintage.com/gcmag/srv.html
 
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Samick guitars are pretty good

Samicks are good and have actually gotten better over the years. I can say this because I've lived in Korea off and on for nearly 7 years now and have had several. I used to have an ES335 copy back in 93 that I bought here. Nice, but a few finish flaws. I can tell you first hand that their quality control has improved vastly since then because I've gone in quite a few stores and "test driven" newer Samicks. And yes, Korea makes probably 70% of the world's guitars.


Bruce in Guitarworld (i.e. Korea)
 
cool link buck
alot of big name guitarists have used "off brand" guitars. I read an article about the making of jimi hendrix's 1st album and when he cut "red house" he wasn't using a strat. For the "red house" tune jimi used a cheap guitar (I think it was a silvertone but not positive). It had humbucker type pickups and one of the pickups was loose and kept falling out of the guitar ...so they scotch taped it in place LOL
as paul harvey says "now you know the rest of the story"
 
My first electric was a strat copy samic, it sounded like shit. But recently my friend got a ES335 copy Samick (with a loan from me) and it sounds great. It sounds fucking execllent for the price he paid too! Another of my friends has an Epiphone Sherdon whcih he got second hand and paid over twice as much. The samic sounds much better. He's going to be very pissed off when i tell him they were both made by Samick (he's too arrigant anyway :D ). If it sounds good to you go for it!
 
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