The guitar’s been well loved, and got signs of natural wear. But looks don’t matter when the lights are dim, and sometimes you just want a guitar you don’t have to worry about hurting when you really lay into her. And who knows, she might even teach you a thing or two.
There are some bumps and bruises in the finish throughout. The repair looks to be a tear out, I’m 99% certain it’s the original piece of wood because the grain matches on the surface, just not all of the tear was put back on the underside, so can’t tell from that angle.
I’ve seen a couple of these with custom covers made over that area so I wonder if it was a common thing? Plus the switch placement seemed to constantly vary. If anyone has any info I’d be grateful to know.
It has a thin finish over the repair that dried to a little darker shade than the original natural wood finish. It’d chip off easy if you wanted, but I figured it’d give it some extra protection and decided not to mess with it.
The neck plays wonderfully. I actually think I might prefer it just a bit to my Artist, but that has too much sentimental value to ever let go of, ha. The neck is really a treasure to play. There is a chip out of the finish behind the 2nd fret. It’s noticeable if looking for it but not bothersome, and past that 2nd fret the rest of the neck is great with just a couple small unnoticeable blemishes in the finish.
There’s a small chip next to the control plate, a couple small stress cracks only in the finish on the back of the headstock, and a couple chips on the top of the headstock. Other than that just a couple bumps and bruises that you’d expect on a guitar this old.
There was a cheap replacement audio log pot in there for the neck volume control. I replaced it with a 500K pot from an ‘84 Greco, also from Fujigen— I believe it’d be the same supplier of pots, and has the same code on it as the other original volume pot in the Ibanez. Other than that it’s all original except for the volume and tone knobs, which are spot on replacements from Repro Guitar Parts (ha, which were not cheap). Large font SG-1 knobs were used prior to June of ‘78. This guitar is one of the first runs as evidenced by the maple headstock, which is pretty cool. Only saw one other in the entire completed listings on the site.
Completely set up and ready to roll. Tone is very bell like and clear, though you get tons of options to manipulate the sound with the controls. The pups take to pedals very well. Also if you ever wanted to change the pups I know Repro sells adapters and stuff to make it easy and without having to drill extra holes. One of the screws in the bridge pup looks a bit stripped. If you didn’t know, you can order metric screwdrivers from Japan. This will keep anything like this from happening in the future. Ha, I found out not too long ago myself and want to share the knowledge. I tried the screw with a said metric driver and it turns just fine, so it’s not out of the game yet.
It has replacement strap buttons which I think hold the strap better so I left them in, but I’ll include the originals with the guitar as well.
All in all it’s an incredibly well constructed guitar and plays amazing. It’s a rarer natural model made even more rare by the blonde headstock and MOP Ibanez inlay. I believe they switched over after May of ‘78 to the much more common dark headstock with gold inlay, so it definitely has its charm to it.
It will ship with a non-original but brand new high quality and well padded Sterling gig bag.
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