Welcome to TheSupposedStringMeister site which is dedicated to the early Yamaha Superaxes and other guitar related hobbies of mine.
The early vintage Yamaha Superaxe guitar series were all characterized by their distinctive horns and their high build quality.
The site is being rebuilt slowly. I am focusing on rebuilding the basic Superaxe Guitar information first and then reloading lost posts, photos and links (from after March 2020).
I have details of 133 SA30s in my database: Lowest SA-30 SN = 01292; Highest SA-30 SN = 27161
The first five SA30 in my database have painted on F holes (stickers actually) and four of them have no vibrato installed. (I use the correct terminology for tremolo in this case). The one that has (01254) also has non original pickups installed.
Note that these five units have a timber intonated saddle like old fashioned arch tops have. Their knobs are also different from the later units and appear to be identical to the knobs used on the early SG-2 guitars. For photos click here.
The next SA-30 in my database is SN 01807 and it has all the appointments we see on most of them: 1) Open F holes with feedback baffle, 2) metal roller saddle, 3) vibrato assembly, 4) black knobs with aluminium top and 5) white dot fretboard markers with no neck binding.
This specification seems to continue until SN 13249 which is the first SA-30 in my database which has thumbnail fretboard markers and neck binding. But this one still has the old style black plastic pickups with the silver plastic pickup rings. The latter continues until SN 17204.
Then the next SA-30 with SN 14299 has dot markers again. And this continues up until SN 17204 which has thumbnail markers and neck binding again. All serial numbers after 17204 only come with thumbnail markers and neck binding – the dot has truly gone. Also, all pickups have changed to silver cover with black plastic pickup rings.
Since all models in the Superaxe series use the same continuous serial numbering system, it is impossible to say how many SA-30s without vibrato (tremolo) were made.
The “Old Product Guitar Database” Yamaha used to maintain (link here) shows two entries for the SA-30, one with T and one without. The one without the T states “Tremolo-free model”. The one with the T states “Model with Tremolo”. See snapshots below.
Conclusion – T stands for model with vibrato. However, one could argue that the “T” is superfluous as there are so few SA-30s out there without a factory standard vibrato system. Also, Yamaha themselves don’t use the T in later brochures and marketing material.
Note – If you do have a real SA-30 without vibrato and with false F holes, archtop bridge and SG-2 knobs… hang on to it, they are very rare so it seems.
SA-30T Certificate and Warranty Card – JapaneseSA-30T Certificate and Warranty Card – Google Translate