Was El Degas made by [Brand of Your Choice]?

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charles
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Was El Degas made by [Brand of Your Choice]?

Post by charles »

A user here recently asked me whether there is a connection between El Degas and Ibanez, especially in the early 70's models.

Ah, the eternal question! This comes up a lot - whether there are connections between the El Degas brand and Ibanez, or a multitude of other brands. Most unfortunately, it's a difficult question to answer - impossible, really.

El Degas is what's called a "white brand" - simply the name put on the head stock of an instrument made by a third-party manufacturer for the company that imported, marketed, and sold them (in the case of El Degas - originally, B&J Music of NY; eventually bought by Kamen Music).

So - the question becomes whether Hoshino (company that makes Ibanez) manufactured any instruments for the brand... and unfortunately the answer is "no-one knows".

Right now it's not known for sure what company may have manufactured what. There was a huge wave of MIJ instruments during this time period and many did things very similarly. There seems to be the strongest evidence that Matsumoku manufactured many El Degas instruments, but it is not known to what extent this may or may not be true. Did Terada make any of the acoustics? Don't know. Is the seeming similarity between some of the Ibanez models and El Degas models simply a coincidence or does it mean there is a connection to Hoshino? Maybe... or maybe not! And how about Fujigen Gakki or Tokai? Probably not... but... maybe?

So for anyone with the same question: unfortunately, that soup of 'maybe's and 'I don't know's is the best I can offer! With no surviving records and information, it leaves the whole thing in an air of mystery. It's actually something that has always kept me enamored with this brand.

Here is a great link to a pretty extensive list of MIJ manufacturers and the white labels/badges they made... note that "El Degas" is down in the "unknown" section. http://hubpages.com/hub/Japanese-Manufa ... 50-to-1980
I started ElDegas.com many years ago to help celebrate and inform about El Degas instruments. It all started with a used Ric 4000 bass copy I bought in circa 2000.

El Degas stable as of 03/2022: 42 :shock: (13 bass, 26 electric, 3 acoustic)
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