2022 Tokai Premium Series Love Rock LS198S Goldtop Standard, Mint Condition w/ P-90s, Case & Tags

Up for sale, a 2022 Tokai Premium Series Love Rock model LS198S Goldtop in showroom-clean condition and in perfect working order, complete with the original Lifton-style hardshell case and hangtags. Expertly crafted in Japan and rarely seen in the US market, the Premium Series instruments are a cut above Tokai's already revered quality. This modern top-of-the-line iteration of the LP/Love Rock platform faithfully captures the feel, tonal properties and aesthetics of a circa 1956 Goldtop, and features include a nitro lacquer gloss finish, P-90 pickups, 500K USA-made CTS pots and Sprague Orange Drop tone caps.Tonewoods include a one-piece mahogany body and two-piece carved maple top, and a one-piece mahogany neck with long tenon joint capped with a bound Indian rosewood fretboard. At 9lbs 7oz, this Love Rock dishes out plenty of natural sustain and authority, captured faithfully by the PAF-Vintage MK2 P-90 pickups. The bridge pickup has an aggressive bite and growl, and the neck has plenty of sweet bloom and punchy kick; equally comfortable with pristine, singing cleans as with thick overdrive. Both pickups meter at 7.8k ohms, very open-sounding and sensitive to pick attack. This Love Rock has been professionally setup here at Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar with fresh 10-46 strings, low action and spot-on intonation.The one-piece mahogany neck has a "asymmetrical U '50s-style" profile carve with generous shoulder and proper “baseball bat” heft, measuring .895” deep at the 1st fret and .995” at the 12th. The bound rosewood fretboard has a 12” radius and features pearloid trapezoid inlay and pristine medium jumbo fretwire. The scale length is 24 3/4”, and the bone nut measures 1 11/16” (43mm) in width. This guitar plays cleanly in all registers with a straight neck and responsive, optimally-adjusted truss rod. The headstock has a Tokai logo inlay and gold “Love Rock” silkscreened script, and the Gotoh Kluson-style tuners turn smoothly and hold accurate pitch. The back of the headstock retains the “Made in Japan” text and 22-prefix stamped serial number.The PAF-Vintage MK2 P-90 pickups have vintage-spec braided pickup leads, wired to USA-made CTS 500K long-shaft audio-taper potentiometers and Sprague “Orange Drop” capacitors. Plastics comprise the quartet of amber bonnet knobs and one-ply pickguard. The chrome-plated hardware all gleams like new, including the HLS-VB Nashville-style bridge with brass saddles and the corresponding HLS-VT aluminum tailpiece. The nitro lacquer gloss finish on the body is practically perfect, and this instrument is essentially new, sourced direct from Tokyo. The gloss on the neck profile is similarly immaculate.The original Lifton-style hardshell case is included, along with the hangtags. The case retains the factory protective plastic on the handle.