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Lotus was a house brand belonging to Midco International of Illinois. The brand was applied to guitars, basses, banjos, and mandolins made in various Asian factories from the late 1970s until the early 2000s. Lotus guitars were usually copies of better-known, up-market brand-name guitars, such as the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster.
Lotus was the brand's name, positioned on the headstocks of a line of good-quality electric guitars that are speculated to be made by at least one Japanese factory. Confirming information is difficult or impossible to find. However, based upon the strong similarities between one particular Lotus model (the L660I), and the Washburn Eagle, many in the guitar community believe the Lotus versions were built at least for a time by Yamaki, as the Washburn was known to have been. Others, after deep comparison and examination of build techniques, feel this model was made by Morris/Moridaira. This lines up as more plausible as other lotus models have characteristics of Moridaira builds.
The majority of Lotus guitars were lower-cost items and, as such, were produced by Samick and Cort. This is evidenced by the hardware used, build styles, and sometimes the presence of original inspection and model stickers. Rumors and guesses abound suggesting that Matsumoku (maker of Aria Pro II) and Fuji-Gen Gakki (maker of many Ibanez models) produced Lotus guitars, but hard evidence of this has been elusive. The time frame is also a factor as rising costs in Japan had sent many smaller importers of guitars to Korea or even Taiwan for the very cheapest units as early as the mid-'70s. Midco focused on lower-priced options through the '80s, '90s, and into the 2000s until the company was purchased by Musicorp. As with other brands, Midco needed to change sources for cheaper labor, moving from Korea, then to India and China. [1]
The most common and good-quality Lotus guitars were usually manufactured by Samick and others in Korea and India. The top-of-the-line early 1980s models were made both in Korea by Cort Guitars (early neck-through models) and in Japan by Morris/Moridaira (neck-through models, set-neck Washburn Eagle copies, and decent Gibson Les Paul copies).
Like the Matsumoku guitars of that era, both the early Korean Cort and Japanese Morris-made Lotus guitars are of high quality.
Lotus guitars are no longer in production. While the low-end guitars have only experienced a minimal gain in value, the high-end models usually range from $100–$300 and are becoming quite collectible.
Chauntelle DuPree of the band Eisley used a Lotus Stratocaster copy for many years on tour and to record. While the quality of this guitar would not typically be considered to be on a professional level, it did provide an inexpensive platform for experimentation and upgrade (with non-Lotus parts), which resulted in a unique-sounding instrument.
The Moridaira-made Lotus guitars are the rarest and hardest to find as Lotus/Morris made them at for only 2–3 years. These guitars all are solid-bodied and were made in the same factory as Tokai. Few models are thought to have come from Lotus/Morris:
These models are easily on par with the Matsumoku-made Westbury and the high-end neck-through Vantage guitars.
The Lotus L670B is often cited as being made in Japan but was a Samick-produced instrument, that is identical to the Hondo H-702 All-Star, and the Mako Traditional Series TB-2. The model is a direct copy of the 1980-1982/3 Fender "Bullet"(MIA and MIJ) other than having switches instead of buttons, and a different headstock shape. There were no letters on the headstock.
Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in İzmir, Ottoman Empire, and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his father's business, Epaminondas Stathopoulos named the company "Epiphone" as a combination of his own nickname "Epi" and the suffix "-phone" in 1928, the same year it began making guitars. From the 1930s through to the early 1950s, Epiphone produced a range of both acoustic and (later) electrified archtop guitars that rivalled those produced by Gibson and were the instruments of choice of many professionals; a smaller range of flat-top guitars were also produced, some designations of which were later continued during the Gibson-owned era for the company.
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The Gibson Firebird is a solid-body electric guitar manufactured by Gibson beginning in 1963.
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Tokai Gakki Company, Ltd., often referred to as Tokai Guitars, is a Japanese musical instrument manufacturer situated in Hamamatsu city, Shizuoka prefecture. Tokai is one of Japan's leading companies in the business. The company was founded in 1947 by Tadayouki Adachi and remained family-owned until 2021.
A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the tuning pegs or other mechanism that holds the strings at the "head" of the instrument; it corresponds to a pegbox in the violin family. At the "tail" of the instrument the strings are usually held by a tailpiece or bridge. Machine heads on the headstock are commonly used to tune the instrument by adjusting the tension of strings and, consequently, the pitch of sound they produce.
Kramer Guitars is an American manufacturer of electric guitars and basses. Kramer produced aluminum-necked electric guitars and basses in the 1970s and wooden-necked guitars catering to hard rock and heavy metal musicians in the 1980s; Kramer is currently a division of Gibson Guitar Corporation.
Orville by Gibson (オービルbyギブソン) or Orville (オービル) was a brand of guitars that was managed by the Gibson Guitar Corporation for the Japanese market during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. The name is borrowed from Orville Gibson, who founded Gibson in 1902.
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Matsumoku Industrial was a Japanese manufacturing company based in Matsumoto, Nagano, between 1951 and 1987. Established in 1951 as a woodworking and cabinetry firm, Matsumoku is remembered as a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars, including some Epiphone and Aria guitars.
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Aria Guitars Co. is a Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments. The company, sited in the city of Nagoya, produces electric, acoustic and classical guitars, electric basses and ukuleles through its brands Laule'A, Mojo Gig Bags, Fiesta, José Antonio, Pignose and Kelii.
Westone is a brand of musical instruments that has been used by various manufacturers of electric and acoustic guitars and basses. The name gained wide recognition in the mid-1970s when Matsumoku in Japan and St. Louis Music in Korea began marketing guitars under the brand. After production by Matsumoku ceased in 1987, the brand continued to be distributed by St. Louis Music in the United States and FCN Music for the UK and European markets, with guitars built in South Korea by Samick.
The Fender Bullet was an electric guitar originally designed by John Page and manufactured and marketed by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. It was first introduced as a line of "student" guitars to replace the outgoing Mustang and Musicmaster models.
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