Acoustic Guitar Mysteries

Last night I was running our monthly blues and folk club at the George in Felpham. On arrival, I saw one of our members lugging an extra guitar in, and I joked that a spare guitar for a quick change around wasn’t really necessary at nights like this. He told me he’d been fixing the guitar up, and wondered how playable I thought it was, because he wanted to know if he could sell it, or if it needed more work.

Inspection showed it to be a Japanese made Moridaira W-617. Not a manufacturer I was familiar with at all. Anyway, cut a long story short, I played it all evening and apart from the frets being a bit worn, I thought it was a pretty nice guitar really, and what he wanted for it was a steal, so, I bought it.

Moridaira W-617 Acoustic Guitar

Now I really don’t need another guitar, as many of you will know, but my Dad’s been hankering for a full size guitar, and Mum’s resisted, so….. I’ve given it to Dad. 

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Questions...?

All this Walton level family love and ‘Christmas in May’ generosity doesn’t answer my questions about Moridaira guitars. Now, I love my guitars,  but aside from my Lindert Victor T (which I discussed in a blog sometime ago) they’re all from mainstream manufacturers - albeit that they are generally the less popular or more unusual models. I’m not really a trend or brand follower as such, I don’t mind the quirky or unusual if it gets the job done.

So, Moridaira…..

In 1964, Toshio Moridaira was the first distributor in Japan to hold both Martin and Gibson guitars. As such he got to visit the Gibson plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan to watch the manufacturing process. The employees nicknamed him ‘Mori’.

Fast forward to 1967, Moridaira launches the Morris Guitar Company, ‘Morris’ being a westernisation of the nickname he received. The company made dreadnoughts and small jumbo acoustic guitar models based on Martin and Gibson designs, and enjoyed a great reputation for high quality instruments. The company lasted until the early 1980’s, but the brand was then resurrected in 2001.

So this leads us to some detective work on exactly what we have here. The serial number of our guitar starts ‘81’ almost certainly identifying it as being manufactured in 1981. Not all manufacturers use this kind of serial number notation, but many do, so it’s likely we have a guitar from the very end of the first Morris era.

Or do we? One thing that is very apparent from my research is that Morris guitars are badged ‘Morris’ on the headstock, but ours is badged ‘Moridaira’. I can’t find any pictures of guitars badged this way. I did find a Morris Guitar catalogue from 1981 online…. I mean, it’s in Japanese, but you can still clearly see the Morris badging, even though it is very 'Martin' styled.

From the 1981 Morris Guitars Catalogue

https://vintagejapanguitars.com/morris-1981-acoustic-guitars-catalogue/

What it does show is a model called a W-60. The 'Martin' style logo would suggest this model was designed to emulate a Martin design, rather than a Gibson. It seems likely then that our W-617 is a variant of this basic model, the difference in numbers probably indicating some alternate materials or construction techniques. If you compare our guitar with the picture, the catalogue has dark wood sides, whereas ours has folded maple sides. Other differences, like the internal bracing pattern, for example, would be less obvious.

But still, badged as ‘Moridaira’..... When Morris stopped in the early 80’s, the company continued on, but purely as a distributor, not a major manufacturer, so what I think we probably have is a guitar released immediately after this time, still utilising a Morris design, maybe using excess or left over materials. Maybe it was a special run because the company did not have a sufficient quantity of one of the construction materials for a full production run. I don’t think we’re ever going to know for sure. I don’t think it makes the guitar particularly valuable, but it probably makes it rare, or at least rarer than most.

Anyway. It’s a good guitar, it’s been rescued, and will now be played frequently - which is what instruments are for, not rotting away in attics and cupboards. Finds like this do remind us though that there’s lots of manufacturers out there that are great, but not famous, just waiting to be discovered.