Can anyone here help un-confuse me????

[Greg Eddins]

 Hi all, great board!  In the ongoing discussion about some of the different brands that Ibanez has marketed guitars under, I have found a website that shows pics of copies with NO name on them...they say they are from an Ibanez catalog from the 70's....I'll post the link, maybe someone here can tell me the truth about it all..

[Jeff Hasselberger (Jhasse]

 Greg-

Scrolling down to the 2351 I see a no-name guitar shown vertically on the left and an Ibanez branded instrument horizontally across the top. Judging from the moiré, the Ibanez shot is scanned from a printed piece.

I’m not sure where the other shot came from, but here’s a possible explanation: Hoshino sold copy guitars to distributors around the world. Many of these distributors had their own names placed on the headstock. An early 70s Hoshino “distributor” catalog might have shown guitars with no names that looked a lot like Ibanez models.

At the very beginning (like 1972) Ibanez models were identical to these “distributor” guitars. Very soon afterwards – within a year – as we began to develop the individual models here in the States, Ibanez started to diverge from those other brands (or lack thereof). The differences were largely in details and quality control. The divergent path continued through the 70s until we pretty much dropped copies.  

Yes, it’s a bit confusing. But things have to start somewhere, don’t they?

Jeff