W ith my Ibanez 2350 in hand, I tried hard to learn everything about guitars and playing that I could. Trudging to lessons every week and trying to learn to read basic music was pretty frustrating. I found that I started memorizing the simple melodies and cheating. If the teacher were to point to a bar and say "Take it from here," I would be trying to think through what the part actually was, sort of like scrolling through the ABC's in my head. He finally realized I wasn't reading very well, and we moved on to him showing me how to play the lead riff from "Day Tripper." That was really cool, and I still remember that even with the barre chords and lead section throwing me off, I loved playing the guitar.
So, that Ibanez was now my most prized possession, and it took quite a while before I even realized what it was. The fact that it was a copy of another instrument made zero difference to me at the time. The Japanese fascination with American culture has been going on for decades, and in the 1970's it was all about them copying the American designs of Fender, Gibson, and others. You will see many Ibanez, Greco, Tokai, and Fernandez copies of iconic American instruments. I have seen variations of the Les Paul (Standards, Customs, Juniors), Stratocasters, Teles (lots of Tele Deluxes), and other things like SGs and 335s. There were many many guitars produced in Japan that were knock offs, and this went on until the late 70's when the lawyers got involved and Ibanez slightly altered their designs. They then went on to be one of the most innovative guitar manufacturers of the modern era.
Were they exact copies? Well, it depends on what you have. My Les Paul Custom based Ibanez 2350 certainly looked like the real deal from ten feet away, but on closer inspection was a semi-hollow guitar, slightly thinner, with a bolt-on neck. When I was eventually convinced that I should sell it and upgrade (a typical music store swindle), it was pointed out that this was a far inferior instrument to the real deal. In the late 80's and early 90's, we were in the super strat era, so the Les Paul copy was easy to get talked out of in favor of a pointy headstock.
Even though I am not a huge fan of bolt on LPs and SGs, this 2350 was a fine sounding and playing specimen. That said, this guitar has sentimental value, I still browse Reverb regularly for one. I would probably not buy one unless the price was real sweet. Prices nowadays for them are absolutely ridiculous. Over $2k for a very student grade instrument.
That said, my other Japanese lawsuit era and later guitars have been very close to the real deal. My Greco SG is every bit the set neck rock and roll machine that a Gibson is at about 1/3 the price. My Burny Les Paul Custom in the same style as the original Ibanez is better than any Les Paul Custom I have played except for the 1958 Black Beauty that I played a bunch of times when I worked at the local vintage guitar shop, Top Shelf. It is definitely a knock off. My Greco LP Custom is the same. Pretty close.
Even though I sold the 2350 and moved on, it was only a few years later that I realized that I really liked all things Ibanez (or Japanese for that matter) and that player grade instruments were really the thing for me. I enjoyed guitars that I would play out with. A museum grade piece never felt comfortable in my hands, and I never really had the money for anything like that anyways. I could have three or four Burny (Fernandez) Les Paul copies for what one semi-decent Gibson Les Paul would cost.
I have owned a plethora of Japanese guitars since that first Ibanez lawsuit era guitar. I had a beautiful Ibanez ES-335 that howled like a banshee when plugged in and turned up because it was hollow through and through, similar to a 1970's Gibson ES-335 or an Epiphone Casino. I had an Ibanez Artcore Talman semi-hollow which was a nice guitar that I sold due to lack of electric playing on my part. In the early 1990's I had a Greco Firebird copy that I gave to my brother-in-law to learn on. Sadly, he sold it off when his interest waned. It was probably a good candidate for a pickup replacement.
Nowadays, I am less interested in the one guitar for everything approach, so my selling guitars because they couldn't be played loud is not a real concern. I would likely still have the 335 and Firebird copies if I could. Over the next several posts, I will show you my small collection of Japanese guitars. Some are copies, and some are original designs, but all are great instruments with lots of character.
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