ibanezgitarrero
Ready to RAWK.
Hello all,
let's continue with the IBZ oddities. This guitar was a cool find as of November 2010, discovered in a classified ad. It was difficult to date and identify this particular model because it doesn't have a serial number and I couldn't find it in any catalog. At the first glance, this baby looks like a RG560 of the late 1980s. The neck is a standard run-of-the-mill RG neck from the 1987..1992 era, that is Maple base with scarf-joint tilt goosebeak headstock, Rosewood fingerboard (here with the larger dots), original Wizard profile, 24 frets, standard silver-gray print logo on black headstock finish, black hardware, Gotoh tuners and Top-Lok III nut.
When you look closer at the body, you see familiar things such as the black EDGE tremolo system, a Japanese HSS pickup configuration and a standard 1988+ no-pickguard RG electronics layout, but also a couple of things that make you go hmm. First, there is the special finish - it is translucent red/orange over ash body - very unusual for that time. Then, there is the shape of the body: Its silhouette is different from both the pre-1987 RG and the 1987+ RG/JEM, especially the body horns which are quite deep yet round, more like a Kramer Stagemaster or a Jackson Soloist. The electronics cavity has the exact same shape as the 1986 Proline model, but that cavity pattern was abandoned after the 1987 RG re-design had been formalized (featuring a separate jack cavity with its own cover plate). The electronics in general are no big surprise (5-way blade switch, volume, tone with push/pull splitter for the bridge humbucker, aka "Duo-Sound System"), but there is an unusual factory-installed mini switch that was not retrofitted - it routs the bridge pickup to the output jack and bypasses all other electronics. The switch housing takes some space and this made the larger cavity necessary. The pickups are not labeled, but I claim that they are Fujigen-made, most probable a Vintage II (V2) humbucker and two Super8A single-coils.
During the renovation process, I found a neck heel stamp that says "RG440PAH", also another one in the neck pocket that says "??440 AH" plus a hand-written pencil note "RED" which indicates the finish color. AH stands for (Japanese Sen) Ash wood, but the letter "P" is still in question - maybe "Prototype"? So the question is: What is this guitar; a pilot run, a factory test guitar, a custom job, a show guitar, ...? I guess this will remain a mystery, since it even made Ibanez insiders from that era shrug, such as Rich Lasner and Jim Donahue. But they encouraged my view that it is most likely a prototype for a 1987 RG440 in transparent finished Sen Ash that never went into production, but somehow made its way to the German distributor and into the market.
As a result of a lengthy interwebs research, I found a range of RG models exclusive to the Japanese market in the 1989 Ibanez "Profile" catalog of Japan. These are called RG6 series (particularly RG670 and RG678) and closely related to mine in all aspects except for body material and finish. But the body shape matches exactly and also the mini switch location; which is called "Kick Off Switching System" in the text. This is the proof that the mini switch is not an aftermarket modification.
In summary, I was very lucky to find this one-of-a-kind RG and it is indeed very special. It sounds incredibly powerful due to the Ash body, and the bypass mini switch is great for recording because you get the pure and undiluted humbucker sound.
Here are the pics!
let's continue with the IBZ oddities. This guitar was a cool find as of November 2010, discovered in a classified ad. It was difficult to date and identify this particular model because it doesn't have a serial number and I couldn't find it in any catalog. At the first glance, this baby looks like a RG560 of the late 1980s. The neck is a standard run-of-the-mill RG neck from the 1987..1992 era, that is Maple base with scarf-joint tilt goosebeak headstock, Rosewood fingerboard (here with the larger dots), original Wizard profile, 24 frets, standard silver-gray print logo on black headstock finish, black hardware, Gotoh tuners and Top-Lok III nut.
When you look closer at the body, you see familiar things such as the black EDGE tremolo system, a Japanese HSS pickup configuration and a standard 1988+ no-pickguard RG electronics layout, but also a couple of things that make you go hmm. First, there is the special finish - it is translucent red/orange over ash body - very unusual for that time. Then, there is the shape of the body: Its silhouette is different from both the pre-1987 RG and the 1987+ RG/JEM, especially the body horns which are quite deep yet round, more like a Kramer Stagemaster or a Jackson Soloist. The electronics cavity has the exact same shape as the 1986 Proline model, but that cavity pattern was abandoned after the 1987 RG re-design had been formalized (featuring a separate jack cavity with its own cover plate). The electronics in general are no big surprise (5-way blade switch, volume, tone with push/pull splitter for the bridge humbucker, aka "Duo-Sound System"), but there is an unusual factory-installed mini switch that was not retrofitted - it routs the bridge pickup to the output jack and bypasses all other electronics. The switch housing takes some space and this made the larger cavity necessary. The pickups are not labeled, but I claim that they are Fujigen-made, most probable a Vintage II (V2) humbucker and two Super8A single-coils.
During the renovation process, I found a neck heel stamp that says "RG440PAH", also another one in the neck pocket that says "??440 AH" plus a hand-written pencil note "RED" which indicates the finish color. AH stands for (Japanese Sen) Ash wood, but the letter "P" is still in question - maybe "Prototype"? So the question is: What is this guitar; a pilot run, a factory test guitar, a custom job, a show guitar, ...? I guess this will remain a mystery, since it even made Ibanez insiders from that era shrug, such as Rich Lasner and Jim Donahue. But they encouraged my view that it is most likely a prototype for a 1987 RG440 in transparent finished Sen Ash that never went into production, but somehow made its way to the German distributor and into the market.
As a result of a lengthy interwebs research, I found a range of RG models exclusive to the Japanese market in the 1989 Ibanez "Profile" catalog of Japan. These are called RG6 series (particularly RG670 and RG678) and closely related to mine in all aspects except for body material and finish. But the body shape matches exactly and also the mini switch location; which is called "Kick Off Switching System" in the text. This is the proof that the mini switch is not an aftermarket modification.
In summary, I was very lucky to find this one-of-a-kind RG and it is indeed very special. It sounds incredibly powerful due to the Ash body, and the bypass mini switch is great for recording because you get the pure and undiluted humbucker sound.
Here are the pics!
