Someone on a local music forum was selling this used Tokai TB48 Thunderbird last week and I grabbed it right away since I’d always wanted to lay my hands on a T-Bird but didn’t want to buy a Gibson. That kind of money could only be spent on a Rickenbacker!
Besides, Tokai had a good reputation of making decent instruments.The asking price was very attractive: the equivalent of $223 USD. She came with a B.C. Rich gigbag and I couldn’t believe how mint she was when I opened the package. No scratches or dings and all. Then I changed the factory strings to D’Addario EXL 170 (45-65-80-100”) and tweaked the neck to dead straight with an overall string height of just a hair over 1/16” at the last fret. She plays and sings nicely now.
I have a question for our Thunderbird owning fellow forumites: to correct the head-dive phenomenon that’s inherent to practically all T-Birds, I’ll have a luthier friend move the front strap buttons to behind the neck joint and the rear button up to a higher position as depicted in the pic below. Has anybody done this? Does it work? I need your enlightments.
If the strap button location mod is to be carried out, I’ll surely have him plug the old holes and touch up with white paint.
I guess Europeans pay a much lower price for these. 
Did you play any of his Sopran "basses"?
