Japan Vintage Guitars

The Japanese were now tearing apart Norlin and CBS thanks to the excellent quality of their copies at competitive prices and in the mid-70s Hoshino Gakki, owner of the Ibanez brand, decided that the time had come to stop producing only clones of famous instruments.

The new lines of instruments, on the other hand, were clearly distinguishable and oriented towards a clientele that appreciated high-end instruments of handcrafted production, built with luxurious mother-of-pearl inlays and selected woods of the highest quality.

In the second half of the decade, therefore, the production of original lines such as Artist, Iceman, Musician and the most coveted Artwood Professional began at the FujiGen factory in Matsumoto.

Initially all these models were identified by a serial number and the splendid Artwood Artist was called 2617.

The guitar showed here today is one of the very first, it dates back to 1975 and is owned by our friend Rich Fiori.

The Japanese had well understood the importance of having important testimonials and in fact the first truly famous original Japanese guitar was the very powerful Yamaha SG2000 (it was even called the “Les Paul Killer”) and achieved enormous success thanks to rock fusion guitarists such as Masayoshi Takanaka and Issei Noro of Casiopea in Japan and none other than Carlos Santana for the rest of the world.

Later it also became a reference guitar for a whole generation of English new wave musicians such as the brilliant and much-loved John McGeoch (Magazine, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Public Image Ltd.) and Andy Taylor (Duran Duran).

And if the forerunner was the legendary Yamaha guitar, probably the second in importance was the Ibanez Artist 2617.

Apparently, the SG2000 and the 2617 are very similar, both logical descendants of the Gibson Les Paul Special double cut, that double-cutaway solid-body version of the Les Paul that was “modernized” in 1960 in the SG series.

Further evolutions of the shapes will then lead to the creation of the Ibanez Artist Professional 2680 Bob Weir, even more similar to the SG2000, and to the model created exclusively for Weir in 1976 and reproduced in 2016 by Sugi for Ibanez with the name BWM1 “Cowboy Fancy”, a meeting point between the Gibson ES345 and the Artist 2617 in fact.

Ibanez BWM1

The two cutaways of the Ibanez 2617 are deep and wide and with slimmer horns than the Yamaha, offering easier access to the very last frets.

The body is solid ash in a clear finish, which adds a gorgeous honey tone to the natural color of the wood.

The carved top is particularly embossed along the edges thanks to the typical German carving style and is further embellished thanks to a sumptuous 7-ply binding with an abalone center stripe.

The 2617’s 22-fret neck is three-piece Canadian maple (plus two for the headstock edges) and glued to the body with an extremely well-carved joint.

The neck adjustment takes place via a standard-type truss rod whose nut is located under the usual plastic plate above the nut and which can be adjusted with a small hex key.

The fingerboard, made in rosewood (future productions will have it in ebony) with binding, has blocks in mother-of-pearl and abalone and a bone nut which in the following models will become half bone and half brass to increase the sustain.

The base of the headstock is reinforced by the volute, the importance of which, after the very high number of broken headstocks, was also beginning to be understood by Gibson.

The tuning keys are the typical adjustable Ibanez branded Smooth Tuner (later the VelveTune were adopted), gold plated like all the hardware.

The instruments that mounted this type of tuners were equipped with a tiny special key to be able to act on the ring nut at the base and adjust the tension.

In addition to the Ibanez logo, the front of the headstock has a decorative inlay made in mother-of-pearl and the Artist name shown on the trussrod cover.

The bridge and tailpiece are the typical Gibson-inspired tune-o-matic style and will later be replaced with the classic Gibraltar installed on high-end Ibanez with the cloud-shaped fast stoptail.

The original pickups mounted in the Ibanez 2617 were the classic Maxon Super 70 (later versions used Super 80 with Flying Finger printed covers) with passive volume and tone controls for each pickup and a switch located on the upper horn but the previous owner of this one replaced them with a pair of coil tapping humbuckers and installed two mini switches on the top.

Rich decided to replace them with a pair of Lindy Fralin PAFs instead and removed the two mini switches.

Further evolutions of the Ibanez 2617 Artist were the 2619 Artist (mahogany body and maple top) and the 2670 Artwood Twin (a 6 and 12 strings double neck guitar).

The 2617 went out of production in 1980, replaced by the AR250.

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