High-quality Honduras mahogany is used for both the top and back. Vintage soprano ukulele
In the summer of 2025, I visited the Tateshina workshop and was shown the workshop's stock materials and past examples, and then placed an order for several ukuleles for the shop.
This instrument is one of those orders, a vintage-style soprano ukulele with a 12-fret joint and a 346mm scale. The body is luxuriously made from a single piece of high-quality Honduras mahogany.
The vintage-style details are also attractive, with a rosette design featuring black lines on the inside and outside of the rope-type muzzle, and the appearance of a good old wooden peg, but with the functionality of a gear peg. Pegheds pegs are used.
Despite its small body, it has a surprisingly loud sound, a lustrous tone, and plenty of sustain.
Seilen is a ukulele workshop run by Shinji Takahashi in the Tateshina Central Plateau in Chino City, Nagano Prefecture.
Takahashi began his career in 1980 at an electric guitar manufacturing company, and became independent at the age of 23. In 2006, he won the Grand Prize at an exhibition hosted by the Ukulele Guild of Hawaii, and has also received high praise at the NAMM Show and other events.
He is known for carefully crafting instruments using carefully selected wood from around the world, combining his sensibility, technique and experience, and personally managing every process. He has earned the trust of both Japan and overseas as one of Japan's leading ukulele makers.
