The firm of Tōkai Gakki in the Japanese port city of Hamamatsu now concentrates on the manufacture of guitars, but up until the 1980s made pianos and offered three types of early keyboards instruments: a spinet, a single-manual harpsichord, and a double-manual harpsichord.

This Tōkai French double-manual harpsichord was purchased new by the Canberra School of Music in 1981. It has the conventional five octave FF–f´´´ compass of eighteenth-century harpsichords, and the standard French disposition of 2 x 8´, 4´, buff, and shove coupler.

There are three registers of jacks. The front 8´ plays from the upper keyboard, and plucks closest to the nut, producing a reedy, almost nasal tone. The back 8´ plucks a slightly longer set of strings closer to their middle, sounding more mellow. These unison registers are separated by the 4´ (octave) register. Levers protruding through the nameboard control which of the lower manual set of strings are brought into action, and the buff stop.

The buff stop creates a lute-like effect by muting each of the back 8´ (lower-manual) strings with a leather pad, filtering out the upper harmonics.

Like many recently-made harpsichords, the keyboards can be transposed in order to facilitate playing at either A415 baroque pitch, or A440 modern.

The case is painted in two colors with black exterior and red interior, separated by gold-painted mouldings. Louis XVI-style legs screw into the bottom of the harpsichord.

This harpsichord incorporates modern materials, including plastic for plectra and jack tongues. The case is spray painted, and the mouldings are in gold paint rather than genuine gold leaf.

This instrument entered the collection of the ANU Keyboard Institute in 2005.

Pitch: Transposable A415/A440