Tahara
Maya

I have wanted an older Baritone and a representative of the post war Japanese Ukulele manufacture to come to the corner for some time and now one has come that is both of these, (though when I brought it I was told it was a Tenor so I only thought it covered the Japanese part).

Maya was a brand name owned by the Japanese distributor Rokkomann and in this case was put on a Ukulele made by Ryohei Tahara at his factory in Matsumoto. The Tahara factory wasn't around long and went bankrupt in the mid 70's. (Rokkomann then opened its own factory in Kobe calling it the Maya Guitar company and it only made guitars, but this was destroyed and Rokkomann went out of business in the Kobe Earthquake of 1995...

But its not all a tale of woe -). It was imported into the UK by Stentor Music, (who are still going strong and sell Ozark brand Ukuleles now), sometime in the early 70's.

As a Ukulele it is nicely made of laminate mahogany, but the neck is quite thin round the back. Good action, good intonation, easy to play but it doesn't have the depth of tone you get with some Baritones.