The Yamaha SHB 400 Guitar

Scan from 1981 USA and Canada Catalogue

The SHB 400 is the only SHB model I can find. We know it was made from 1981 to 1983 but official documentation on this guitar is scarce. It doesn't appear in the archives and is absent from the Japanese and UK catalogues of the period. It does however appear in the 1981 USA and Canada catalogue as per the scan above. It doesn't appear in the 1982 UK catalogue nor in the 1981 or 1982 Japanese catalogue.I don't have access to any other catalogues from 1981 to 1983. This leads me to wonder if it was made specially for the American market. Further evidence of this is that I have never seen one for sale in the UK but there are two for sale (2017) on Ebay USA at the moment one for $900 and one for $500, which looks ambitious as the last one I can find that sold made $230. It is said to be a cheaper alternative to the Superflighter, the second and third generation SFs were available at the time.

Some pictures