Why so many vintage American lap steels in Japan?

[Joseph Lazo]

I look at lap steels on Reverb pretty regularly and have noticed an inordinate number of listings from sellers in Japan. Besides the expected Teisco listings, there's a huge number of vintage US lap steels from Japanese sellers. There's not a big lap steel scene in Japan, is there?

I watched something on TV years ago about how Japanese buyers were traveling to the US to go to flea markets and buy up any vintage blue jeans they found, which they would then re-sell at huge markups. Apparently, old jeans have collectible value. Maybe that's going on with those lap steels on Reverb?

[Sam Inglis]

Is it definitely the case that they ARE in Japan? I don't know about Reverb, but eBay is plagued by Japanese drop shippers who make overpriced listings for things they don't own, but which are on sale elsewhere. In the unlikely event that someone buys it, they presumably order it from the shop where they've seen it and pocket the difference.

[Joseph Lazo]

Sam, they couldn't just order a '59 Champion from a vender and have it shipped to the buyer. The steels they're selling are all vintage steels.

[Rick Aiello]

Hawaiian music and steel guitar are very popular in Japan …

[Stephen Cowell]

Hawaiian music and steel guitar are very popular in Japan …

Fender Japan bought the tooling to produce Deluxe 8's. Some of these listings might be Japanese manufacture... if you can see the pole pieces then chances are the guitars were built in Japan.

Of the first dozen Reverb listings I checked 10 were USA, 1 was Canada, and one was Sweden.

[Joseph Lazo]

Stephen, you can filter search results on Reverb by country. I just did this and there are currently 12 lap steels listed by Japanese sellers, all of them vintage lap steels. This is less than I thought there would be. Maybe I just seem to click on the listings from Japanese sellers more than those of others.

[Joseph Lazo]

Rick, I didn't know steel guitar and Hawaiian music was still popular in Japan. I would've thought it's like it is here, a musical fad that's mostly faded away.

[Rick Aiello]

Apparently it’s a favorite spot for Hawaiian steel players to tour …

Jerry Byrd once said of the Japanese Aidience … “ you could hear a pin drop all night” …

Lion Kobayashi is one of the main guys over there, teaching, orchestrating an all steel ensemble … and they have their own chapter and conventions via HSGA

[Dave Mudgett]

Quite beyond the popularity of steel guitar in Japan, Japanese buyers have been buying up vintage guitars of all types from "The Big Four" - Fender, Gibson, Martin, and Gretsch - and add a fifth - Mosrite - for decades now. At a lot of levels, many in Japan have, for a long time, been significantly more into American musical culture than Americans have. I dealt with many Japanese buyers when I was doing that kind of thing as a business back in the 90s, and I still see them prominently at guitar shows. However, they did a lot of this buying a long time ago when the pickins were much more plentiful - and reasonably priced.

[Joseph Lazo]

Dave, thanks for your comment. I should have mentioned in my original post that I've also seen a lot of listings for vintage American guitars from sellers in Japan. Actually, I see more of those listings than listings for steel guitars. I think you're spot on in saying the Japanese are more into American musical culture/history than Americans (as a whole)are.