Hoshino Gakki Co. Ltd. is best known for its two world-famous brands of musical products: Ibanez and Tama. TAMA, as well as producing drums, also produced guitars made by Seisakusho Co. in Aichi, Japan. This company was founded in 1962 as part of Hoshino Gakki. The history says that the brand name TAMA was created by the founder Yoshitaro Hoshino in memory of his wife Tama Hoshino. In the beginning the company produced guitars, amplifiers and drums for Ibanez.

By the mid-1960s, Hoshino's manufacturing operation was unable to keep up with demand, and in 1966 the company turned to third-party manufacturers to build its guitars. Then, in 1970, Hoshino began a partnership with another manufacturer, Fuji-Gen Gakki, located in nearby Matsumoto. Fuji-Gen took over nearly all of the company's electric guitar manufacturing operations, while the TAMA subsidiary continued to make acoustic guitars and drums.

In 1974 the first TAMA acoustic guitar could be found in an Ibanez brochure. It was the model 3558/6, a six string dreadnought. Later on the model name changed to 3558.

In the following 3 years the line of guitars was completed by different steel-string and two classical guitars. The steel-strings were more or less copies of Martin guitars. Tama guitars of that period can be identified by the full written logo on the headstock (except the classical guitars).

In 1977 TAMA presented a new line of guitars with a different design, covering a T-style logo on a non-Martin-like headstock. Models included the top of range TG (all natural guitars), TW (style and taste),TC (classical), Scalloped Series, Vintage Series, Vintage Deluxe Series, Maple Dreadnaught, Floral Deluxe Series, Old Timer Series, Jumbo Series and Classic Models.  In 1978 TAMA introduced their last guitar, a TG-190 as a limited top-of-the-line model.

1979 heralded the introduction of the Artwood Series, starting with the top of range AW100, AW90 and 70, AW95 & AW75 (12 string versions of AW70 and AW90), AW60, AW40 & AW30, AW20 and AW25 (12 string version of AW20).  The Ibanez Artwood Series replaced the top of line Tama TG series and the remaining TAMA models ceased production at the TAMA plant. Production of the Artwood Series were subsequently shifted to a different plant and later again to Korea and now China.

An extract from the 1979 Ibanez Artwood catalog offers some insight into the philosophy behind Ibanez's Artwood Series:

"The shop itself is set up to provide each craftsman with a pleasant and comfortable environment in which to work. There is no push and no pressure – each craftsman is paced by his own diligence. The 30 or so craftsmen produce fewer than 10 guitars each per month.

In order to produce the best possible instruments, the craftsmen are provided with the best possible materials with which to work. Fine woods from around the globe are cured in the open air and in custom designed kilns under the watchful eyes of Ibanez wood experts."

Crunching the numbers, that would make approximately 3600 Artwood guitars produced in the Tama workshop, assuming the series was produced for one full year. That number would then be spread over the 10 Artwood models. Assuming production of twelve string guitars was lower then 6 string, and lower end models were produced in higher quantities, that would result, in my estimation, less than 150 series 1 AW75 models produced.

So not only is this AW75 hand crafted from very high quality materials, it is also quite a rare model.