Gibralter II - Gotoh substitute used ...

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Author Message Funkle (Funkle) Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 10:00 am:    I've noticed that some models from the '80s lasted as having gibralter II bridges in the catalogs, may have a different bridge in some cases. My AM300 has a Gotoh tunomatic instead of a GII. I thought maybe it was swapped at some point, but acetan's am300 has the same bridge. Has anyone else noticed this to be the case? Any thoughts on why non Ibanez parts would have been substituted? -Sven Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 12:20 am:    I tried to replace the Gotoh with a Gibraltor bridge but the stud spacing is not the same. Jim_Donahue (Jim_Donahue) Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 8:45 pm:    Yes the Gibraltar II and Gibraltar I both have different stud space,(The tailpieces had 4 different styles) I have a good idea as to whats going on but I need three things to tell for sure, 1) The serial number 2) A photo of the bridge on the guitar. 3) What country are you from? JIm Donahue Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 10:09 pm:    The serisl number: ...and the bridge: I'm in the US. Thanks Jim. Ace Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 10:12 pm:    The serial number: Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 10:13 pm:    ...and the bridge: I live in the US. Thank you, Jim. Ace Jim_Donahue (Jim_Donahue) Posted on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 10:41 pm:    Yes that is exactly what I thought. Here is a long story short. Fuji gen the main Ibanez factory started making the Fender Squire guitars in the early 1980's. By 1985 they decided that making set necks was not efficent so they decided to stop, Hoshino Scrambled to find a new supplier for both the hollow bodies and the Solid bodies. The H90 serial number is very confusing, It should mean 1989 H is Hoshino, Two factories used this Terrada for the Hollow bodies they made and Gretsch guitars and also the Sigma Acoustics for Martin. The other company was IIDA, They made all the Artist's. The guitar you have is an IIDA model. Probably 1987 or 1988, They used H9 for three years? There are also some H7's out there, In the End neither factory could keep up with production and the rejection rate was very high. in 1990 there was almost no set neck models produced, then in 1991 Fuji-Gen started making all these models again. So why is it not a Gibraltar II? because IIda ordered the wrong bridges from Gotoh. This was not shown in the catalog withthis bridge. This is one of those untold things that happens. Jim D Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 11:09 pm:    Hi Jim, Thank you for the inside scoop. All along I thought I have a 1989 Terada while it is a Hoshino. Sven, seems like you may have the same thing. Funkle (Funkle) Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 11:59 am:    Thanks Jim, Mine is also an H90. What is a "Terrada"? Are you saying 2 factories, Hoshino and IIDA used an H in their serial number? Did those 2 factories also make Gretch and Martin? Funkle (Funkle) Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 3:28 pm:    So why is it not a Gibraltar II? because IIda ordered the wrong bridges from Gotoh. This was not shown in the catalog withthis bridge. This model was not shown in any of the US catalogs I have seen, only the price lists. -Sven Acetan (Acetan) Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 3:44 pm:    I found this scan of a page from the '88 catalog somewhere but can't seem to find it again. Jim_Donahue (Jim_Donahue) Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 9:05 pm:    Sorry, I thought for some reason it was an AR not the AM, The reason for this would be to first save money and second is to seperate the line up. The Gibraltar II is a very expensive bridge to make and buy, It is all diecast and has many parts, The lower price models did not come in through Hoshino USA, But Hoshino Gakki always offers all the models to Chesbro, So many times they bring in models that I would never see. Whenever we would set up models we had to look at every part and price it. So if the basic construction is the same we would need to remove thengs to hit the price. each country had some different price points so many times the models would be as we called downgraded spec wise. Usually we would use only Ibanez parts on Japanese models. If you look at the models you will see the difference in Spec and this is the difference is price, Jim D Gemberbier Username: Gemberbier Registered: 05-2006 Posted on Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 6:18 pm:    2 years and 5 months later... a link... a click... some reading... some astonishment... about... a confusion of tongues, because of the omission of a "colon", which proves the importance of punctuation marks. There we go: Jim wrote: "The H90 serial number is very confusing, It should mean 1989 H is Hoshino, Two factories used this Terrada for the Hollow bodies they made and Gretsch guitars and also the Sigma Acoustics for Martin. The other company was IIDA, They made all the Artist's. The guitar you have is an IIDA model. Probably 1987 or 1988, They used H9 for three years? There are also some H7's out there, In the End neither factory could keep up with production and the rejection rate was very high. in 1990 there was almost no set neck models produced, then in 1991 Fuji-Gen started making all these models again." instead of: "The H90 serial number is very confusing, It should mean 1989 H is Hoshino, Two factories used this[:] Terrada for the Hollow bodies they made and Gretsch guitars and also the Sigma Acoustics for Martin. The other company was IIDA, They made all the Artist's. The guitar you have is an IIDA model. Probably 1987 or 1988, They used H9 for three years? There are also some H7's out there, In the End neither factory could keep up with production and the rejection rate was very high. in 1990 there was almost no set neck models produced, then in 1991 Fuji-Gen started making all these models again." Ace: "Thank you for the inside scoop. All along I thought I have a 1989 Terada while it is a Hoshino. Sven, seems like you may have the same thing." Funkle: "What's a Terada?" Well, Terada and IIda are the two factories that used H (what actually should mean Hoshino). And Ace, you were probably right about your guitar being built by Terada after all. I guess you were referring to a hollow body. (If not, it's an IIda Artist). Hoshino is a holding company, not a factory! H905064 means either: Terada '89, guitar nr. 5064, or Iida '89, guitar nr. 5064. This one is an AM-model (Artist), so it's not Terada, but Iida. It has a Full-Tune II bridge in combination with a Quick Change II instead of a Gibraltar II with a Quick Change II, because of a wrong order by Iida. They left it that way because the holes were already drilled. A beautiful story and a beautiful Babel-like confusion. Ginger

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