Duplicates with Westones Besides Aria?

With today's purchase of a 1990 Westone Villain Graphite (Korea), I learned that this guitar is identical to the Aria Villain Graphite.


What other guitars are duplicates of Westones?  Does Vantage, Electra or Aria have other models that are duplicates of Westones?


With Vantages, being the "in-house" brand at Matsumoku, do you suspect Vantages were built at a higher quality than Westones?

Matsumoku had many ‘in house’ brands.. APII, Aria, Vantage, Westone, Electra, Univox and others of lesser volume; they would make ‘white’ label guitars and put whatever name you wanted on it.

As to quality, base models were indeed basic, but fit & finish were still exemplary, and the top of the line models - APII PE Supra, ST1512, Westone 350MA, Vantage VA900 - were just astonishing!

I own a VA900 which was my gigging guitar for many years and it performed flawlessly for all those years… I’ve played a Supra which had to be the most over-built guitar I’ve ever seen, albeit an exquisite example of the luthiers art!

Remember, Matsumoku were in the business to make a profit, as were Chushin-Gakki, Ibanez et al., so these guitars are a mass-produced item, though some were hand finished.

So the short answer to your question is “No”,  Vantage were not built to a higher standard to Westone…

corsair wrote:Matsumoku had many ‘in house’ brands.. APII, Aria, Vantage, Westone, Electra, Univox and others of lesser volume; they would make ‘white’ label guitars and put whatever name you wanted on it.

So the short answer to your question is “No”,  Vantage were not built to a higher standard to Westone…

So impressed how intelligent members are here.

Why do you suppose that the Westone owners seem more active than the Vantage Owners (Westone members have a forum & 2 info sites while Vantage Owners have no forum I can locate).

I thank you for the private message.  Your profile settings are set to not receive private messages but I can summarize my reply:
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Today's purchase satisfied my desire for a lower end Westone and my only purchase left is for a highend Westone like a Trevor Rabin Special, Prestige, or a Pantera.  Please message me if you decide to sell a Pantera or a Prestige. 

Only curious what you feel a used Prestige would go for?

you might enjoy reading through some of the historical articles on the https://westoneguitars.net/ website for more info

Westone wrote:Today's purchase satisfied my desire for a lower end Westone and my only purchase left is for a highend Westone like a Trevor Rabin Special, Prestige, or a Pantera.  Please message me if you decide to sell a Pantera or a Prestige. 

Only curious what you feel a used Prestige would go for?

Cool! Bear in mind that my Genesis is a pre-production model…

I wouldn’t like to even hazard a guess as to relative values, man; I do know that a 250 won’t be cheap, nor will a 117, or a 227! If you can find one: those that have ‘em, hang onto ‘em, eh!

As to Vantage owners not being as prolific as Westone owners… I don’t know but there are a few of us still about!

http://www.matsumoku.org/ggboard/index.php

gittarasaurus wrote:you might enjoy reading through some of the historical articles on the website for more info

I appreciate that link. I must be missing something as there is good but basic info on the homepage, a link to the description of the models, and a link to the forums here.  On YouTube I found videos about the history of the Matsumoku factory to learn what happened to Westone.

Where is the link from the homepage to the historical articles?

What I want to learn is why, despite a core group of Westone fans, could Westone never be revived.  Not by the high quality craftsmanship of Sid Poole in the 90's.  Not by the German (Muysic-Myer?) company in the early 2000's, not by lowend Indian & Chinese importers around 2010.

In contrast, Danelectro was revived in 1997 & sold 100,000 guitars the first year they released them.  I was one of the customers who bought one, and not due to their lipstick pickups.

if you clik on the "Website" icon at the top, it takes you to westoneguitars.net

then on the top line there are 9 links, look to the right side and clik "History"

there is a "brief westone timeline" where the page opens, but then scroll down to find several good articles

gittarasaurus wrote:if you clik on the "Website" icon at the top, it takes you to westoneguitars.net

then on the top line there are 9 links, look to the right side and clik "History"

My goodness thank you for those instructions.

I see it now but missed it before.

This "history" section is extremely useful.

gittarasaurus wrote:you might enjoy reading through some of the historical articles on the website for more info

On one of the YouTube videos on the history of the Matsumoku brands, it said just after their Factory shut down in '87, one of the last brands imported by Saint Louis Music was called "Series 5" or something similar.  It might have been a different number...Series 10 Guitars?


Does anyone remember the correct name for this "series" brand and any of its history?