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I'm trying to decide on whether to buy a late 80s/early 90s Greco FA ES-175 or a Archtop tribute AT105/ATC175?
Anyone have experience with both and can steer me in the right direction?
thanks
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12-31-2024 04:56 AM
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Ideally you could play both guitars, but...
As a lefty, I'll never be able to. However, I will say that I have a Greco LP that is retry much the best playing instrument I've ever touched. It beat out several Gibsons I played prior to it, and not by a small amount. It trounced them. Every Greco I played was at least on par with the Gibsons.
I wouldn't recommend buying without the possibility of return etc... but if you can play one, don't be surprised if you like it.
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No Brainer! The AT. Why? It’s the more modern guitar. And if they were being made in the US they’d be selling for so much more many wouldn’t be able to afford one.
Grab one while they’re still affordable, imho.
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why is modern = no brainer?
Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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Simply a better made guitar. But hey, it’s only my personal opinion. Originally Posted by RyanM
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A 35 year old guitar, i.e., the Greco, is likely to have some issues, but as far as affordability, I wouldn't expect the AT's to hold their value any better than the Grecos or similar relatively unknown brands have, which is to say, not very well. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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We make our decision and put down our money. Originally Posted by Mick-7
But this one is tough to beat. Gibson isn’t making them, and the equivalent is a lot more.
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Don't see them for sale anywhere. There are none on Reverb now, there's a used one on eBay for $4600 or best offer (shipped from Japan), which is why I don't understand your "the equivalent is a lot more" statement. You could buy 3 Greco archtops for that price. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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That guitar was available here for $3200. I said everyone makes their choices. My money is on a brand new guitar rather than a 40 year old guitar. I’ve personally owned a 77 ES175. And that guitar listed below was $1350. Japan’s capacity to build great guitars didn’t end 40 years ago. They only improved. You’ve probably never owned a Vestax New Yorker built in 2004. I’ve owned 2. I’ve never owned a better built guitar. Originally Posted by Mick-7
All I’m saying is there are many affordable alternatives from the Japanese market.
Here’s a recording of that guitar.
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Your video is of a different guitar brand, i.e., Seventy Seven, there are many of those for sale online, but not of the ATC's, which are the subject of this thread. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
But apparently your point is that any modern Japanese guitar is at least as good or better than an old one? That's a big generalization that I would not bet my money on.
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We’re different people, possess different logic. And that’s completely normal and in the way of things. You’re speaking about a personal preference, I respectfully disagree, but hey that’s your preference. My money is on the new guitar that’s available for cheap. Who cares they’re not available for sale here? I’ve seen them available used on Reverb. And besides, they’re a Japanese market guitar. As was the Greco at one time. The AT’s are absolutely a fine guitar, imo. Originally Posted by Mick-7
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Archtop Tribute are made in the Terrada factory (except the high end “custom” line). Is that the same factory that was making the 70-80s clones by Greco, Tokai, Aria, Ibanez?
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The history is a bit convoluted. You are probably thinking of the original Fuji-Gen factory, which is in Matsumoto in Nagano prefecture--but I think they have three factories now. I know Greco and Ibanez guitars are, or used to be, built there. Many Aria guitars were built by Matsumoku Industrial, which was also located in Matsumoto. Terada is in Nagoya. Tokai is located in Hamamatsu, in Shizuoka prefecture, but they also build some guitars in China and maybe Korea these days.
Last edited by Flat; 01-22-2025 at 08:45 AM.
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Westville appears to sell them for ~ $3000.00 , or 2900 Euro. Originally Posted by Mick-7
ATC350BK — Westville Guitars
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That’s a lot of guitar for $3k! Originally Posted by jim777
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On topic:
I saw this post while I was in Japan last week. Found a couple of used Greco FA 750 models for sale but they were not particularly inexpensive (about 1200-1500 usd). Very nice, I liked them somewhat better than my old Ibanez 2355. They seemed a bit lighter and more resonant. They also were in pretty good condition. I noticed that one of the guitars I tried is listed on Reverb by Kurosawa for about $1600 including shipping to USA.
I have played the AT105 at Walkin guitars in Shibuya on several occasions. For a bit more money, that is what I would prefer given the two choices.
off topic:
That said, there are even more new MiJ guitars that I would consider that sit in the 2K usd range. The best ES175 clones I have played recently were the Tokai EA320 and the King Snake deep body Curtis model. The latter, with its ultra thin nitro finish, is a super guitar IMO. You can find these on Reverb but not many reviews. The guitar in the photo was taken at Miki Gakki in Osaka. The price in USD is about 1775.00!
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Gorgeous Guitars at very affordable prices. Who else is making an ES175 knockoff inexpensively? Originally Posted by Donnd
On topic:
I saw this post while I was in Japan last week. Found a couple of used Greco FA 750 models for sale but they were not particularly inexpensive (about 1200-1500 usd). Very nice, I liked them somewhat better than my old Ibanez 2355. They seemed a bit lighter and more resonant. They also were in pretty good condition. I noticed that one of the guitars I tried is listed on Reverb by Kurosawa for about $1600 including shipping to USA.
I have played the AT105 at Walkin guitars in Shibuya on several occasions. For a bit more money, that is what I would prefer given the two choices.
off topic:
That said, there are even more new MiJ guitars that I would consider that sit in the 2K usd range. The best ES175 clones I have played recently were the Tokai EA320 and the King Snake deep body Curtis model. The latter, with its ultra thin nitro finish, is a super guitar IMO. You can find these on Reverb but not many reviews. The guitar in the photo was taken at Miki Gakki in Osaka. The price in USD is about 1775.00!
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Who makes the "King Snake deep body Curtis model"? King Snake is the brand name? Originally Posted by Donnd
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King Snake is the brand name. They are made in Terada, apparently built in small campaigns and have distributors only in the EU and Asia.
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I used to catch king snakes when I was a kid (kept them for a day and then released them), never saw any remotely like that one out in the field though. Originally Posted by Donnd
Looked more like this:
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Mick,
As a kid in SoCal, we used to occasionally catch the local variety of king snake in the foothills above the pacific….really beautiful creatures.
ironically in Japan, I tried more old Gibsons archtops than any other brand. But they are still very expensive even with a strong USD (divide yen by 154 currently). It was an excellent education for which model suited my playing the best.
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Hey, that’s my guitar! It gets gigged all the time. An exceptional instrument at twice the price. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
We make our decision and put down our money.
But this one is tough to beat. Gibson isn’t making them, and the equivalent is a lot more.
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That's a beautiful guitar.Did you have any problems ordering from Westville?I'm always leary of ordering a guitar from overseas. Originally Posted by telephone
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No problem whatsoever. Masaki, over at walkin.co.jp, is easy to communicate with and a very nice fella. The guitar arrived fairly quickly, and with a near perfect setup. The only thing I had to do was adjust the action to my liking. Fit and finish is top notch. Originally Posted by nyc chaz
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Yes, I've bought around ten guitars from Japan on E-Bay in the last decade, and all except one (seller 'Product-Value') were well packed and arrived undamaged.
And you can strike it lucky with a nice old Greco - twice over, in my case - first in 2018 with a non-varitone ES-345 copy (mid-seventies Greco SA-700) and last year with an all-acoustic ES-175 copy (1992 Greco FA-95) - which I've now had electrified with a Kent Armstrong floater.
The original 1992 frets were still very playable, and the guitar has a spookily clean finish all over despite its 33 years, with great tone, getting more plummy the deeper down you go. Beautifully made, no obvious issues other than requiring an initial slight adjustment to the truss rod - and the advertised internal piezo pickup didn't actually exist ! (hence the excruciating howl through my amp when I first tried to plug the guitar into the end-pin jack socket
........)
Best of all was the price, which over about 6 weeks dropped lower and lower on E-Bay, as nobody seemed to want a non-electric ES-175 !
I eventually paid £680-00 UK pounds, with shipping from Japan and UK customs charges bringing it up to £1,003-00 overall, for which I now have a real gem of a guitar for less than a quarter of what I would have paid in the UK for a G*bs*n ES-175 (around 3K - if you're lucky) and upwards).
Yes, the Greco will need re-fretting at some point in the future, but the tuners are still fine, there's truss rod room left, the neck is nicely straight and playable - and because I paid such a low price, I've replaced the (non-original) pickguard, bracket, two-piece wooden bridge and tailpiece with all-new WD components - which do the job nicely.
Haven't been able to try out an Archtop Tribute model in the UK, but I've proven - twice over - that you can still find a great playing and sounding old Greco for sensible money, if the fates are smiling on you............
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