Ibanez non reverse firebird

[pietro]

Hey there,

I'm new here, I'm even new to the whole offset-thing!
I've always been a guy who swears by Les Pauls, but recently I've been given a local luthier's copy of a Fender jazzmaster which intrigued me.
A few weeks ago I was telling some people about it, and one of them (who I didn't know very well) says: Hey, I used to play the guitar too, still got something 'fenderish' (!) laying around, but it needs a lot of work, you can have it if you know how to make it sing again...
So, a few days later, I'm picking it up, and I see it's a non reverse firebird made by Ibanez

I actually like it A LOT, so I'm planning on doing some work to it. I posted this on the MylesPaul forum, and some guys mentioned this forum and that I should post it up here, because there's a lot of knowledge about those over here

So, here's my post from MLP:

I've recently purchased this Firebird non reverse model,
it's a bolt on neck.

Anyone who knows anything about it? No serial number found.
Manufactured by? Year? ...
I actually don't know anything about it, and would like to know.

What I found online is mostly ibanez firebird reverse models, and they all have no inlay on the headstock, only the truss rod cover it says Ibanez...

I'm planning on cleaning it, leaving the original beat'n up finish,
putting a stop tail/ nashville combo on it (since I've got a set lying around),
grover mini tuners (come from a donor gibson explorer)
I might put binding on the fretboard too;
it needs complete new wiring, since non of it still works,
new switch..
I'm going to test it with the original pickups in it, but I might swap for humbuckers later on,

I'm gonna make a decent player out of it

Edit: what about the tremelo system? Never seen anything like this, doesn't have manufacturer on it;









thanks for any info/help!

[Pacafeliz]

welcome aboard!

i had one of these basses, and my brother still has one of these, to match yours!



high-quality early 70s japanese.
they are very VERY rare. they never even made it into any ibanez catalog.

where are you located?

i once saw one of these firebirds for sale in mexico city, but the guy sold it to another guy, even though he'd promissed to ME!

[pietro]

Hey there,

on MLP someone told me already it was either late 60's/early 70's..
If it 's very rare, I might be better off to wait before starting to modifie it?
Might be worth something in original state? But of course, I don't have the original bridge,
which is missing

I'm located in Belgium, western Europe

[mgeek]

Yeah, 100% just get it back into playable condition- tuneomatic, strings, done.

I guess if the pickups are lame you could swap the out for something else that fits the same holes? Dunno about cash value, but to look at it another way, how many of these have you seen compared to say, fender jazzmasters? Theres something to be said for historical value rather than just £££

[Ceylon]

That's cool as hell! Congratulations on a good snatch!

The house I live in during my uni semesters is also in Belgium so if you ever get tired of it, I'll be around

EDIT: About the trem, I think some japanese factory made these Bigsby-ish things. It even has a buzzstop thing (I think it is).

[Pacafeliz]

EDIT: About the trem, I think some japanese factory made these Bigsby-ish things. It even has a buzzstop thing (I think it is).

yes many of my old japanese (matsumoku) copies had those!

[Jazzmastervsjaguar]

Nice guitar! I just got a ibanez tele deluxe last week and use to own a ibanez thinline years ago. I honestly can't say enough about these guitars. If you take a look at the underside of the pick up there should be a four or five digit code the second is the year so x2xxx is 1972.



As for modding it I would just make it playable. I find that these are really good guitars in their own right. Granted I haven't played this model but the two tele's I've had sounded incredible. The pickups were for sure the best thing about them. My deluxe keeps great tune the tuners just needed a bit of lube. I actually changed the thinlines tuners to grovers (I was young and didn't realize you could take them apart and lube them up) and later regretted it.

[pietro]

EDIT:

post deleted, wasn't aware we weren't allowed to just mention anything about selling!

[s_mcsleazy]

high,

meanwhile I've decided to sell it...

if anyone from around here would be interested: please contact me!

KR
Pieter

yeah this post could very well get the modmins down on you.

[pietro]

I deleted my previous post!

thank you s_mcsleazy for pointing out!