87 Corsair xa1440 black left from my grampa

After getting this guitar a year ago i put some dimarzio pickups in it and have had some fun playing on it i decided to do some research because it has one of the best guitars i have ever played. Does anyone have the 87 model corsair xa1440 or know where it was made or any other info on this model?

Hi there, fella - they're a great guitar, aren't they!! I wanted one of these in flouro pink for ages, but the guys in here poured scorn on me and questioned my masculinity!!

While I don't blame you for swapping out the p'ups, I hope you kept the OEM ones, eh; the guitars value will be higher with all of the bits there!

I don't have a Corsair, but I do have 2 x 87 CL4112 Clippers and an 86 Genesis II, and I rate them all quite highly, especially the necks which IMHO are the equal any necks, anywhere!!

Here's a link to the relevant page at Westone.info...

http://www.westone.info/xa1440.html

...would you be able post pictures for us, please?? And whereabouts in the world are you?

I did keep the original pups. I don't plan on getting rid of it but you wouldn't happen to know where it was made or the value of it would you

Production of that model started late 87 and it didn't appear in the pricelists until early 88 so it was almost certainly made in Korea, in either the Yoojin or Saehan factories. i've no idea about the value but would not expect it to be high.

Yep, pretty much what Thorn said; my Clippers are probably Korean, but I don't know for certain and have a sneaking suspician that the BD equipped guitars may have been MIJ, and the TRS 101 equipped MIK, but as stated, I don't know... and frankly, I don't care - the guitars are consummate players!!

Value; subjective but yeah, they're not quite worth as much as the Matsumoku ones... but they are catching up, damn it all!!!

We made about 110 Corsairs TOTAL of several production colors. The bodies were made at 2 factories, Saehan > Where we took the tooling from Matsumoku and Jack Westheimer's factory. The necks on about 90% of the later Westone's were shipped from Matsumoto to Inchon for assembly at Saehan (We had about 1800 neck blanks @ Matsumoku when it closed - so we used them on the Korean and the Customs that we made in the US) Corsair pickups (closed covers) were Maxon's or Duncans on the USA assembled models. Open cover pickups were the "unbalanced coils" left over from Matsumoku. The dark blue, red with black binding and pinks were shot at SLM and assembled in the SLM guitar shop by Jerry Proctor's team. We only made about 20 Westone's per month in the shop. We made 14 Corsairs with the Wilkenson Trems and Spurz Locking machines and some custom pickups wound by some "crazy guy" in his basement using a sewing machine for a wind counter. They were the same pickups that I used on Trevor's Pantera. Post a pic of your guitar and I can tell you if you have one of the "rare" ones. Lot's of goofy info in the forums about Electra, Westone, Phoenix and Alvarez. It's fun for some of us "old guys" to see how our experiments are viewed after 20 or 30 years. You have a fantastic instrument! Tom P.

Hi Tom, and a very big welcome here!
Thanks so much for this information!
I confess I don't know your history intimately but I certainly know of your reputation as a guitar designer!
If you've been following these forums with any regularity at all you'll know that we've got a rabid bunch of Matsumoku fans here...and I suspect there will be questions!

hi and welcome tom,

and thanks very much for the panteras ...

Thanks! I'll not muck up this thread with a bunch of useless stuff, but the Westone instruments were among the most interesting that I ever did. When I say "I" please understand that there were a bunch of people that were really responsible, not the least the SLM team and many of the engineers in Japan AND Korea. I'm sure that it's been discussed, but there were Westones made in Japan that were NOT Matsumoku produced. After the factory was sold - there's a whole story there..., we took the tooling, several of the better luthiers over to Fuji and made some of the key models. I couldn't tell the difference in the way they played, looked or sounded. Not surprising though - wood, hardware, tooling and production supers were the same. We did the same thing with the Saehan production and we actually had some of the Matsumoku staff living there. Since all of the Westone US designated product was sent to SLM, Jerry Proctor and our SLM luthiers set them up and did some of the custom stuff - added the rubber pads, Switchmaster knobs on some models, and in many instances actually assembled the raw components - remember the "snakeskins". All made in the US of Japanese, Korean and German components. Sorry for the long post - as you can see, I still have somewhat of a passion for these rascals!

i'm very sure everyone in here really enjoys reading your posts .thanks for sharing your knowledge with us .


regards,
hans

tpresley wrote:Thanks! I'll not muck up this thread with a bunch of useless stuff...

Not at all. We want to hear everything you have to say about Westones, Matsumoku, and your work and your passion for these instruments! You are a living link to this amazing guitar maker who appeared for such a brief time, rocked our world, then flamed out all too briefly.

Many of us here collect other Mats guitars too, and we're completely in love with them all. Anything you can share with us here will no doubt be cross-fertilized to the Guitar Gallery (LINK). Believe me when I say, you have our attention!!

After the factory was sold - there's a whole story there...

Oh yes! Can you please clear up just exactly what happened there? There are so many rumours and half truths circulating it would be refreshing to get the right story!

Sorry for the long post - as you can see, I still have somewhat of a passion for these rascals!

On the contrary, not long enough! Please keep talking! Your passion is ours too.

I would love to hear the thought process behind the Rails... and why the 1984 models didn't have the strings parallel to the rails. Or, additionally, why the Rail guitar didn't get produced. I'm very curious! It's definitely time for an offshoot thread for Tom to share his thoughts. And I know the Electra forum would LOVE to hear from you, Tom!

Hi guys . First posting here. I'll formally introduce myself later. Many of you know me allready anyway . As soon as I got word Mr. Presley was here, I came rushing over from Matsu-org forum.
Like my fellow Matsumoku-lovers, I'd love to hear (well, read ...) EVERYTHING the man can tell us. So, Mr. Presley; more long(er) postings please!

Regards,
Kees.