NGD - Used Prestige? Hold my Divine Amber beer. (Time travel to 1998 to kill all 56k)

[Alberto7]

Picstory first!
Aight, let's get to this thing.

Ain't nobody got money to buy fancy knives instead of guitars.

Oh? A used PRESTIGE?! SSO must have had something to do with this!

Uh, yes, technically what I ordered, thank you

Hhmmm that would certainly be nice. Guess they must have used this box for a really nice guitar in a rare color at some point!

Hairs of dubious provenance stuck to the tape. Let us move right along.

What?! J. Custom case?! It can't be

One

Two

Well, that's all folks! SSO won't let me upload more pics to this post. Guess you won't found out what's in the box. (jk, wait for the next post, thank you very much.)

 

[Alberto7]

Three!

Peekaboo?

PEEKABOO?!

Peekaboo!
A used J. Custom! A 2011 RG8527Z in Divine Amber (DA) to be precise.
Supposedly the only year they used this color on both the 8527Z and 8570Z models. I've struggled to find pictures of these on Google, let alone production info on this color, but supposedly quite limited from the little I could find. No matter though, 'cause this thing is freaking gorgeous!

But gotta inspect... Broken D and high B strings. The seller said they broke when he was doing a final check before packaging and offered to take it to a shop to have it cleaned up and set up or to give me a refund. He was deeply sorry for the wait. My guy, please told him to send it to me as is and I'd have the time of my life cleaning and setting this thing up to perfection. (Spoiler alert: I did!)

Best I can tell I must be the third or fourth owner of this thing. At some point someone replaced the DiMarzio PAF7s with some cream pickups. I actually REALLY like the cream, but I wonder if I'll get tired of it at some point and might go back to black. (Or zebra!) The original PAF7s came included with the guitar. The seller thought these were Evolutions, but when I Googled the product code on the back of the pickups, I found out it's a set of DiMarzio Imperium 7s. Pretty cool! I've never even thought of trying a set of these nor have I heard much about them. They actually sound fantastic.

Ok, the COA is in the case. Thought the seller might have forgotten it when I first opened the case. All the usual case candy also came with it, including the Ibanez multitool and the Ibanez strap locks.

The "usual suspect" neck pocket cracks are very much present, but no matter. The seller claimed to not know they were there, (he had the guitar for two years but I don't think he used it for more than an hour) and I completely forgot to ask him for pictures of these, but I fully expected them to be there when I found them anyway. There's also a few others dings and dents on the guitar, but overall it is in great condition, and the finish looks pretty great overall.

(More on the next post)

 

[Alberto7]

Filthy frets and dry fretboard (but those ball ends are looking good! Except for the rusty green gunk under some of them)

The bridge is in surprisingly good condition given that it has this finish. Very minor wear on a corner of the low B string and the top of the bass-side bridge stud. The locking studs were not engaged, and it was missing the plastic torque bushing for the tremolo arm though, which the seller wasn't aware of, so I'm not sure he really knew how these bridges worked or just couldn't be bothered. But no matter, I put in the bushing from my Ibby AZ, which is currently not getting much use, and I'll be soon be ordering a couple from (most likely) Rich.

A good fretboard moisturizing/oiling and fret polishing brings them back to life. These frets are sexy looking.

Cleaned, oiled, and greased the bridge, and applied some purple loctite to the trem posts to make sure everything is as tight as possible.

And now she's all set up and ready to go!

This thing plays effortlessly. It's a very heavy guitar, (exactly 4 kg) but it somehow feels even lighter than my JP12-7. Not sure why, must be a balance thing. I've always been an RG guy, so I feel very at home with them. I played with the ZPS system engaged for a couple of days. The thing was rock solid from the tuning stability to the absolute stiffness of the tremolo. I appreciate the ZPS system's concept a lot, but any dive-bombs may end up dislocating my shoulder. The zero point is also not set exactly where the baseplate is parallel to the body, so it ended up being slanted up a bit. I've removed it now and it's butter. It's my first guitar with an Edge Zero, and I am really like it. Love the practically and feel of it.

The backstory to this guitar goes back to the fact that I've been looking for a good, high end 7-string with a double locking tremolo for a while, and after deciding I didn't feel like dropping the $7.5k CAD I was quoted on an Anderson Angel Player 7, I started looking at J. Customs on Reverb, (as well as a bunch of other brands) but I found the colors of most of the current offerings a little boring. Then I found the listing for this guitar, and I fell in absolute love with the color. I started looking at this guitar probably at the very beginning of 2024, but did not feel like dropping the cash. But I kept going back to the listing just to look at the pretty thing. Eventually the shop selling it was set to "Seller on vacation" and the listing was removed from Reverb's search results... but I had kept the direct link to it for some reason, so I'd still go back to look at it from time to time. To appease my gas, I got a used EBMM JP12-7 local to me, which is a lovely guitar, except about a week into my ownership of it, I noticed the neck had a ton of back bow and the single-action truss rod had run out of room to add relief, and the guitar was already sporting 10s in B standard. I was not willing to play it with a higher gauge just to pull the neck straight. Naturally, I was very disappointed. So, after playing a brand new RG8527 at the Axe Palace earlier this month and falling in love with it, I decided that was it. I contacted the seller directly even though the shop was set to be on vacation. To my surprise, he replied immediately saying the guitar was actually still available. I requested a few more pics, and after discovering a couple of very minor dents and dings that the seller hadn't noticed, I managed to get a few hundred off the asking price. I'm actually very surprised at the overall condition of the guitar. The seller really did have a gem on his hands but couldn't come to grips with the 7th string and (per my own speculation) the Edge Zero bridge.

Anyways, that's enough pictures to kill any dial-up connection and a bible of a post(s). Thanks for sticking by. I love this thing so far, in case you couldn't tell!

 

[Moongrum]

hell yeah, buddy. I like the cream appointments with this finish, reminds me of the old Rocket Roll V guitars, retro in a good way.

 

[7stringDemon]

Love that finish and the cream. Really makes it come together as a complete package. HNGD

How do you like it compared to the one you tried?

 

[Concerto412]

Hairs of dubious provenance stuck to the tape. Let us move right along.

Beautifully worded. Favourite thing I’ve read all day

Also, gorgeous top on that! And +1 the cream bobbins work great with that burst.
Congrats!

 

[groverj3]

Amazing. Hot AF.

What I'm missing, myself, is a true high end 7 with no wonky specs. Jealous!

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Gorgeous! And the cream pickups look great on it too.

 

[jaxadam]

Now THAT’S a picstory! What a beauty!

 

[Stiman]

Wow. Just stunning!!!

 

[crushingpetal]

Guitar: 10 / 10
Write-up: 10 / 10
Photos: 10 / 10