Post by Alex van Starrex"recently"? Anyway, Ibanez's "original" style pre-80's guitars were somewhat
laughable - one was recently re-introduced as a "retro" type thing.
Other than that, I'm not an expert - maybe something was worth buying back
then.
Hiya
During the 50's and 60's "Made in Japan" was synonymous with cheap junk.
This was just before the influx of higher end products, which perhaps
began in mid 60's with Honda and later Yamaha and other motorcycles soon
followed by automobiles. Prior to that, most Japanese stuff in America
was on the level of trinkets or simply a market small goods at a very
cheap price. Even many song lyrics reflected this concept, I can think of
a Jefferson Airplane song as late as Volunteers or Crown of Creation that
used a metaphor of "made in Japan' as the nadir of plasticity. "Plastic"
at that time was a much more powerful derogatory term than it is today
because plastics in general back then were far less usefull, strong, and
lasting as they are now. It wasn't until 1969 or 1970 that Ibanez and
other Japanes guitars began to show up in any quantity or quality when the
"knockoff boom" began that started with Les Paul copies. At first even
these were of substantially lesser quality. At the time a Gibson Les Paul
sold for around $600 US. Most copies from Japan were between $100 and
$199..... obviously they couldn't even come close. However they were
cheap enough to get people to try them out, at least in store if not as a
second, slide, or gift guitar. Even though they weren't even close to
what they were copying it didn't escape notice that most were at least
playable and because modding was in full swing by then, many perceived
that the metal parts, especially tuners, bridges and pickups, could be replaced
with quality parts and a decent hybrid worthy of being a solid second or
even a first guitar to a pro, and certainly a great beginner guitar would
result, and the Japanese were masters a fine finishes even on cheap stuff.
It wasn't for another 8-10 years ( circa 1980 ) that we began to see a
number of Japanese companies offerring truly professional guitars and by
that time cars, cameras, virtually every product imagineable began to
flood into America having graduated from "cheap Japanese junk" to midrange
and even high-end imported bargains.
I can only imagine that Jimi may have been attracted by price back then,
especially if he couldn't even keep up with it's costs, and it is also
possible that he liked the idea of a guitar that looked a little wacky,
because the early stuff really did look whack with way oversize headstocks
and oddball body shapes. The Japanese should be very proud of their
amazing evolution of unbelievable proportions considering it only took
roughly 20 years to go from "cheap junk" to "just about as good as it
gets" and in so many areas.
Jimmy