MMK 45 pick ups and mystery guitar.

Hi everyone I'm Matt a new member who just joined today and this is my first post.....
I have a thunder 1 a from '84 which I bought for £45 including original hard case in 1990 and I also have a red Concord 1 also from '84 which I was given a year ago....
The thunder was the first decent guitar I bought after having a bunch of kay , sattelite , sakai etc cheap strat and lp copy's in the '80s
I have owned sold and traded many different makes and models since but the thunder has stayed with me and is still one of my go to guitars...
I have a explorer copy which is branded sunrise which I have never been able to find out any info on I believe it to be late 70's early 80's
I have not found any markings on it apart from the pickups which are stamped MMK 45 were these exclusive to matsumoko or were they supplied to any other manufacturers...?
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Matt

Hi Matt and welcome the Institute for Westone Addiction and all her inmates 

The "active" Thunders are great rock guitars with lots of ballz to get anything done that you need in a band, and the Concords are a nice alternative to the typical Strat clones out their, very comfy to play.  We'll look forward to seeing some pix when you're able eh? (gotta wait 7 days before you can post hyperlinks)

As for the MMK45's I believe the short answer would be yes they do pop up in other branded and off branded (white label) guitars, mostly because they were manufactured by Matsumoku under contract.

Besides producing for Aria and of course their own Westone brand, Mats made an extraordinarily large number of instruments for just about everyone, Japanese and American alike. So it would not surprise me to see an MMK45 installed in some little known brand.

As for the "sunrise" label a quick look in the Google universe found a couple of references to Sunrise basses, as well as Matsumoku, so it looks very likely you may have a genuine Mats-made guitar.

MMK means Matsu Moku Kogyo.and although the pickup design was developed by Mats, we believe that the actual manufacture of them was done elsewhere by people like Maxon for example.

Hi Barry
And thanks for the info...I always suspected the sunrise was a mats product from the MMK pickups and the general build quality....totally agree about the thunder 1 a too it's a great rock guitar with a super comfortable and fast neck and a superb range of sounds...im a big fan of Dave Brock and Hawkwind and it absolutely nails that space rock sound 😋 have been trying to pick up a bargain spectrum for a few years now....one day...lol
if I ever had to get rid of my collection (which includes a couple of fenders and gibsons) it's the thunder I would keep...!! I like the Concord a lot too and got hold of a magnaflux pickup I intend to swap the original bridge pick up at some point....going back to The MMK 45s if memory serves I think my thunder has them too but it's been a while since I've had them out so I'm not sure...I remember looking at the specs a while back and i don't think they were fitted originally....do you know if some were...or is it likely they may have been replaced..? I will get some pics posted in the next couple of days including the sunrise explorer...maybe some other members might know something about it..!
Once again thanks for the info
Best wishes
Matt

Your Thunder should have 45's in it. Check out our Website for more information. Click on the "birdie" logo in the menu bar above.