Re: I can feel a good one coming on....
The guitar is pretty clean especially considering it's a '79, very little fretwear on what look to be the original jumbo frets.
Killer fret board, killer. I thought it was ebony but looking at it in the daylight with fresh eyes I am thinking it is very dark rosewood, maybe Brazilian!?! There are a few minor dings and some scratches but most of the scratches will buff out pretty easily. Needs a little setup and maybe a touch of relief but it's strung with 9's so when I put the 10's on later I'll have a better idea. Sounds great, very Billy Gibbons/Pearly vibe to it. The neck is nice and round and chunky, feels like an older LP which is great. The last Artist I had was great but had a very thin neck with an oddly pronounced volute that made it kind of uncomfortable to play down low. It also had SD 59's in it which made it a bit fatter sounding than the Super 70's in this one.
This model never made the catalogs in '79 it was a dealer special apparently to give them a less expensive option than all the flame and burst style tops, kind of like an Ibanez version of what Gibson did with the Studio. When the AR-50 made the catalogs a year later they all had neck and body binding from what I can find. Not that it's so rarified or anything but it's kind of neat, I like having a bit of an oddball. Sam Ash had it marked as an ST-55 which is a bit of an offset SG style guitar since they couldn't figure what it was, they could have easily asked double what I paid for it if they knew what it was. Has the original case too, it's coming unglued but I think I can salvage it. All in all a really nice score. I love older Ibanez guitars so this was a pretty sweet 50th bday present to myself, very happy.
I'll take some nicer pics when I do the setup.
