as a novice to all this, I have questions. Case in point I bought a vintage shamisen from a antique dealer here in SF, how do I know if it’s tsuguru or? are there measurements I can make? Coming from guitars, and basses, I got that down this a total new thing to me, thanks in advance
The first thing you can take a look at are the tuning pegs. If they are thick as the ones you can see on the pictures on this site in the store, then it should be a Futozao shamisen, which is the biggest one and used in Tsugaru.
Welcome to the community Jeffrey.
If you could take some pics and post them, I’m sure some folks here can tell what kind of juwel you got;-)
cheers
Ale
Hi Jeffrey!
Welcome to the Bachido community! 
To identify which kind of shamisen you have, please check out this page - http://bachido.com/overview/shamisen-styles. It should make identification easier. If you’re still unsure, feel free to post some pictures, as Ale said, and we’ll help!
All the best!
Kyle
so I have a thin neck shamisen, getting ready to send the body back to Superfrog79 for a reskin, now is it taboo to puit Tsuguru style skins on a thin neck? I wish I would watched the bachi video first as i did buy a cool vintage wooden bachi off ebay $20 so it’s not a huge loss.
Great! Jessica will do a great job on it! Nah, in my opinion, the shamisen has been changing so much over a few hundred years that I would say very little is taboo nowadays. From what an expert shamisen maker told me, “The shamisen is just an instrument. If you have something you want to change/modify to the shamisen, just try it and see.”
Did you buy if from an older Japanese Lady’s shop on post st? She tried to get me to buy one from her once!
the old grouchy lady?, yeah me too. No I bought mine from Kuraya on Harrison between 19th and 20th, they have another project down there as well, needs love but I suspect you could get it cheap
Yeah I was living in SF when I discovered Shamisen. I searched high and low but couldn’t find the right Shamisen. Glad you were able to find some resources!
yeah now we have Bachido!!!
the old grouchy lady?
Damn, ouch guys! Fujita san of Sharaku is a lovely person! She’s got character.
But I’m glad mutual experiences and reminiscing is going on here. 
I should check out Kuraya too. There are plans to start a monthly shamisen workshop in SF, so trying to round up as many fixer upper shamisen as I can for people to use.
Fujita-san is nice compared to the old man that runs Mashiko in Jtown itself, lol
Haha!