Product: Yamaha FG-240
Price Paid: USD 70 USED
Submitted
04/19/2009
at
02:37am
by
Miki Page72
Features
:
No Opinion
As far as I am aware this Japanese made Yamaha was only ever sold in Japan so I can't be sure of the specs I am stating here. It was manufactured between 1972 - 1974. Mine was built in '73 as it has a serial no starting with 3 and has a green Nippon Gaki label. It's a dreadnought, spuce top, mahogany back and sides, mahogony neck, rosewood fingerboard (I think, although I am not convinced it is rosewood). It has Rotomatic tuners (yamaha) which are so, so much better than the open ones on the FG-180. The neck is pretty fat in comparison to other similar guitars. I also have a 1967 Fg-180 but the neck on this is alot more formidable.
Sound
:
10
This guitar absolutley sings! When I first picked it up it had some worn old strings on it and needed a good clean but it still sounded great. Once I got it home and cleaned it up I put a set of light gauge John Pearse Phosphor Bronze strings on it and it was a revelation. For strumming chords it is totally sublime, I have never heard anything so sweet sounding. The FG-180 is better for finger picking but for open chord strumming this has more richness while still maintaining that lovely dry sound that vintage Yamaha's have.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
I haven't had this guitar set up professionally yet so there are a few intonation problems with the low E. The action is also a bit high above the 7th fret but nothing to worry about too much, after all it's an acoustic - I'm hardly going to be finger tapping Van Halen tunes on it. It has aged very well even though it doesn't look like its been too well looked after. I will eventually take it to get set up properly but at the moment I can live with the intonation issue.
Reliability/Durability
:
No Opinion
Strangely enough for a guitar that is able to produce such beautiful delicate and nuanced sound it is absolutley rock solid. I don't think there is much abuse this thing couldn't take.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
N/A
Overall Rating
:
10
I was lucky enough to find this guitar in a backstreet secondhand shop in a working class neighborhood of Tokyo. I paid $70 USD for it, the shop owner confessed to knowing nothing about guitars. It came with an old hard case but not an original Nippon Gaki one. Apparently when it sold new it retailed at 24,000 yen in 1973. To put that in perspective that was about one months salary for an average worker at the time.
I have no idea what it is worth now as they don't seem to come up for sale too often. Anyway, the fact that I stumbled upon it the way I did I think we were meant to be together(!) so I won't be selling.
