Repost of LP copy picture

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Author Message markski Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:03 am:    I am reposting this because I screwed it up the first time. I posted a lengthy story about this LP copy on December 12. Maybe someone can tell me what type of copy it is. It has a unique tailpiece on it and the intonation screw for the low E string snapped when we tried cleaning up the guitar a couple of months ago. It has a floating bridge set-up on it now and it seems to be working fine. I probably should try to replace the part but haven't had any luck finding a replacement. Anyway, a picture of the guitar and a close-up of the bridge is below. What do you think? Mark JohnS Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:03 am:    Mark, I'm posting your original message here, to help others keep all the piece of the puzzle in one place. ********* I got interested in playing the guitar back in high school around 79-80. I bought myself a used Ibanez Les Paul copy in the same time frame. The salesman told me that Ibanez almost got sued for making these so good. I remember that one of my guitar playing friends loved the action on it. Needless to say my interest for playing the guitar waned and after a few years it wound up spending a lot of time in the closet. Through the years, I would occasionally bring it out, but for the last 5 years it just sat in it's case. Within the last few months I've decided to start playing again (it's cheaper than golf) and I found that a few of the parts were corroded, etc. I gave the guitar to another friend of mine who said he would try to clean it up for me. He did a pretty good job, but when he went to work on the bridge screws that adjusts the string height, he snapped one of them. WE are looking for a replacement. Since I'm looking to get this operational again, I'm wondering what type of LP copy is this? I'm not too good with guitarspeak but here goes...It has a purple woodgrain finish with a mahogany fretboard and bolt on neck. It has two Super 80 pick-ups and four volume knobs. It has a CUSTOM tag on it and a little sticker on the back that says Super 80's (because of the pick-ups?) The serial # is J770503. It is still taken apart and I have no pictures of it yet. Can anybody give me an idea of what I have? Thanks ********** JohnS Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:03 am:    Mark: As you noted, the parent company, Hoshino, was sued for making copies of Gibson's guitars. The details are sketchy, but everything transpired between late '76 and early '77. One source says that by the '77 NAMM show all Ibanez guitars had already been refitted with "non-Gibson" shaped pegheads. This change made them "legal". Your's has the reshaped headstock and an Oct. '77 serial number making it a post-lawsuit guitar. After the lawsuit Ibanez started to emphasize their own designs and get away from copies. But they obviously had a lot of replica parts to move. Your guitar is a mixture of a leftover LP body outfitted with parts that were regular issue on their own guitars. The fancy tailpiece was mostly seen on something they called the Professional series. One, the Randy Scruggs model, shared the LP body shape, but was quite different in most other respects. I have seen this tailpiece used on other LP shaped guitars. From LP clones, like yours, to very special, limited Ibanez guitars (take a look at the 2674 in the Guitar Tours section). The pickups have the Flying Fingers logo embossed on them. That would make them Super 80s and a dead giveaway to any Gibson fan. But they are highy prized by Ibanez fans too. The bridge is called the "Gibraltar", used from sometime in '77 to '83 or '84 (somebody help me pin this date down, please). It was a very good bridge for it's time. The only variation was that many of Ibanez's solidbody guitars had a brass block embedded into the guitar's top, directly under the bridge. The bridge posts went thru the block and into the guitar body. This made the guitar heavier, but helped with sustain. However, this same bridge, sans the block was also used on many Ibanezes. I would suspect that your guitar does not have such a block. Because these were used for such a long period of time, they should be available somehow. In fact I saw some Ibanez NOS bridges, with the blocks, for auction on ebay several months back. They were pretty popular items. Finding an old, junker Ibanez is another way to get a bridge. I doubt the fretboard is mahogony, probably rosewood. There's any outsde chance it's ebony. Hope this helps. Aaron Hancock Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:03 am:    That looks very similar to my Les Paul!! Check out pics at http://members.xoom.com/herdogoats

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