Lotus was a

house brand A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...

of certain

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

s made in various Asian factories from the late 1970s until the late 1990s. Lotus guitars were usually copies of better-known, up-market brand-name guitars, such as the

Gibson Les Paul The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that was first sold by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1952. The guitar was designed by factory manager John Huis and his team with input from and endorsement by guitarist Les Paul. Its typ ...

and the Fender Stratocaster. The quality of the instruments was very good for the price (usually around US$400–$900).

History

Lotus is a brand name put on the headstocks of a line of good-quality electric guitars made by at least one Japanese actory [Confirming information is difficult or impossible to find. However, based upon the strong similarities between certain Lotus models and other guitars bearing the Washburn brand, the consensus in the guitar community is that both brands were built at least for a time by Yamaki.] Construction of Lotus-branded guitars started with the elite league of Japanese craftsmen and initially made excellent Morris-branded guitars, but trying to keep up with heavyweight makers such as Matsumoku aker of Aria Pro IIand Fuji-Gen Gakki aker of Yamaha or Hoshino aker_of_Ibanez.html" ;"title="Ibanez.html" ;"title="aker of Ibanez">aker of Ibanez">Ibanez.html" ;"title="aker of Ibanez">aker of Ibanezwas difficult. Mismanagement and, especially, the inability to market their initial superb-quality guitars soon had Lotus' owners scrambling for cheaper labor, ending in India with poor quality and eventually no takers for their product, as Chinese and Indonesian guitar producers stepped up with instruments of comparable quality at similar prices. For a general description of the popular music market that gave rise to the host of brand names borne by good-quality Japanese music gear, see the Wikipedia article on Memphis Guitars.

Versions

The most common and good quality Lotus guitars were usually manufactured by Samick and others in Korea and India. The top-of-the-line early 1980s models were made by both in Korea by Cort Guitars (early neck-though models) and in Japan by Morris / Moridaira (neck-through models, set-neck Washburn Eagle copies, and decent Gibson Les Paul copies). Like the Matsumoku guitars of that era, both the early Korean Cort and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese Morris-made Lotus guitars are of high quality. Lotus guitars are no longer in production. While the low-end guitars have rightfully only experienced a minimal gain in value, the high-end models usually range from $100–$300 and are becoming quite collectible. Chauntelle DuPree of the band Eisley used a Lotus Stratocaster copy for many years on tour and to record. While the quality of this guitar would not typically be considered to be on a professional level, it did provide an inexpensive platform for experimentation and upgrade (with non-Lotus parts), which resulted in a unique sounding instrument. The Moridaira-made Lotus guitars are the rarest and hardest to find as Lotus/Morris made them at most for only 2–3 years. These guitars all are solid-bodied and were made in the same factory as Tokai. There are only 3 models that are known to have come from Lotus/Morris: # The Lotus L670B (a direct copy of the 1980-1982/3 Fender "Bullet"—MIA and MIJ, but not MIK) other than having switches instead of buttons, a different

headstock A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed instruments such as a lute, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others of the lute lineage. The main function of a headstock is to house the pegs or mechanism that holds the strings at th ...

shape, a solid body and the same pickups. There were no letters on the headstock. # The Lotus Vantage copy (Washburn Eagle, Aria Pro II Cardinal series, or

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, ...

Artist) double cutaway (batwing) guitar with a solid body, 3 per side tuners on headstock, rosewood fingerboard with brass inlays, brass nut and neck-through construction (though there may have been a bolt-on model). This was usually finished in emerald green, polished mahogany or stained blue/white breadboard style and occasionally gloss white with 2 exposed humbucker pickups. # A more conventional Gibson Les Paul copy, usually only seen in gloss black or tobacco burst. These were neck through, and bolt on neck, with hardware similar to their double-cutaway Vantage copy. These three models are easily on par with the Matsumoku-made Westbury and the high-end neck-through Vantage guitars.

External links

More Info in the Cort Dragon Inlay Guitars
Guitars