I recently acquired what I thought was a Kiso Suzuki "Lawsuit" Hummingbird copy for spares or repair. On closer inspection it turned out to be a not very well disguised fake which had a KS label stuck inside and a poor paint job over the original makers mark on the headstock.

Being as I didn't pay too much for the guitar anyway and it sounds half decent and after consultation with a luthier about the repairs I decided to keep the guitar. (The seller did apologise and offer to take it back and refund the cash when I pointed out it was a fake!)

From what I can glean from searching the net the guitar is probably either a "Lyle" W460 or 680L model which would have been made around the late 70's or early 80's by the Matsumoku factory in Japan which as a sub-contractor of Aria (Arai and Company) manufactured instruments including Gibson Epiphone, Skylark, Cutler, Aria, Aria Pro, Aria Diamond and Washburn from 1964 into the mid 80s.

However, removing the Suzuki label will probably destroy the original which it is probably stuck over or has even been removed. So I'm probably not going to find out which model it was.

When the guitar comes back from the luthier I am going to restore it to its original make and remove the poor paint job over the "Lyle" mother of pearl inlay.

However I have a slight problem in that I can't get a decent image of the original "Lyle" label from searching around the net.

It would be appreciated if anyone could give more information or even provide pictures of the models or label.

Please PM me if you can.

Thanks in advance.

Chris Coulter