70s Ibanez Les Paul Studio 2372 (pre law-suit)

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The Les Paul Recording/Personal is my favorite Gibson LP but for some reason I like it better as a Ibanez law-suit era perfect copy - maybe that 70s feel vintage Japanese guitars have... Of course at the time it was an infamous copy by the evil Japs (see previous post), but now it's the splendor it's supposed to be...

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Greco Firebird copy

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Another Firebird, and a vintage black one (!), but it's not a Gibson, it's a Greco... 

I don't have more info about this guitar, but it looks like a faithful copy, obviously from the lawsuit era... Greco were so good at copying other companies guitars that they ended up as Fender Japan - just had to change the logo on their teles!

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

1970 Antoria 2358R (Epiphone Al Caiola pre-lawsuit copy)

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This Antoria 2358R is not only a pure beauty, it is also a complicated story.

The original model is an Epiphone signature guitar designed in 1963 for jazz musician Al Caiola (who sided the greatest such as Frank  Sinatra or Buddy Holly). In 1970, Ibanez issued a quite accurate copy - that's what they were doing at the time, before they started to get sued by Gibson - but the FujiGen Gakki factory that worked for Ibanez also made the same guitar for the UK brand Antoria.

This guitar is remarkable for being a thin full hollow-body E-335 without F-holes - this being being aimed at reducing feedback - similar to the B.B. King Lucille signature model Gibson released in 1983. I like the FujiGen Gakki model better for its curved control plate being further back an smaller than on the Epiphone, but the big round scratchplate is a little bit bizzare.

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!