I've got a fifty-year-old bone to pick with Yamaha. Before I knew anything about guitars, my first exposure to the company was in 1969 when I started riding motorcycles. They were annoyingly tinny-sounding little two-strokes back then, and I wouldn't have given you two cents for one - except for one thing. I absolutely loved the logo on the gas tank! Aesthetics have always been a major draw in my various hobbies, and I thought that logo was just the coolest looking thing. However at the time, I had no idea that the Yamaha logo actually represented three intersecting tuning forks. I only knew that I found it very pleasantly attractive.
Two years later in 1971, a college buddy had shown me a few chords, and off I went to buy my first guitar. In the music store, I was immediately drawn to the body shape of the Yamaha FG-160, it's tortoise pickguard shape, and oh my god, that same cool logo beautifully residing all by itself on the peghead. To my eyes, it was the most attractive instrument in the room. I did indeed buy the Yamaha, but sadly it was stolen from my home a few years later. When I went out to replace the guitar, the current FG-160 looked exactly the same except for one thing: under that lovely peghead logo sat unelegantly the name - YAMAHA.
Yes, I was fully dismayed that the company did not recognize that they had completely ruined the singular aesthetic appeal of their beautiful logo by lazily slapping their toy-like name underneath it! Given the fact that in the past fifty years these numbskulls have still not figured this out, I sadly have to say, the future of our beloved Guild may be teetering precariously towards the abyss.
It's the overseas production where I could see some models being cut, with a bit more overlap with Yamaha's other ranges.
www.manufacturing.net
