This is a pretty looking ukulele, traded in as a genuine Shinji Takahashi, luthier-made ukulele. I have contacted this luthier and he confirms it is not made by him, despite being labelled as such inside. I suspected it could be the case as, while it’s skillfully made and decorated, it sounds OK, but not amazing. It’s fairly heavily built and therefore doesn’t have a huge voice. I was taken in by the deception at first and considered it an ‘early work’… akin to Van Gogh’s childhood paintings in nursery school - but it is not made by the ‘grand master’ Shinji at all.

Because I don’t want anyone to pass this one off again as a fake (that’s what it is, despite the sanitised ‘replica’ in the title), I will destroy the interior label.

I think the wood is genuine, and someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make it. It’s just a shame they passed it off as someone else’s work.

This one has been owned a number of times and has been sold to various people as the genuine article. It categorically is not, and I will make sure there’s no label inside that suggests it is.

The ‘full price’ reflects the trade in price I gave before realising it was a fake.

I considered destroying it, but it seems a shame. But it will have a blacked out label inside!

I can’t send anything from the special offers section to the EU, sorry.